First and Second Volumes of Chronicles: compromising 1 The desription and historie of England, 2 The description and historie of Ireland, 3 The description and historie of Scotland: first collected and published by Raphaell Holinshed, William Harrison, and others: now newlie augmented and conti

London: H. Denham, 1587. Full description:

HOLINSHED, Raphael. The First and second volumes of Chronicles, comprising 1 The Description of England, 2 The Description and Historie of Ireland, 3 The Description and Historie of Scotland: First collected and published by Raphael Holinshed, William Harrison and others: now newlie augmented and continued with manifold matters of singular note and worthie memorie) to the year 1586 by John Hooker alias Vowell Gent and others. [London: at the expenses of John Harrison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke, 1587]. [Together with:] HOLINSHED, Raphael. The Third volume of Chronicles, beginning at duke William the Norman, commonlie called the Conqueror; and descending by degrees of yeares to all the kings and queenes of England in their orderlie successions. [London: at the expenses of John Harrison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke, 1587].

Second edition of the true Shakespeare edition. Three volumes bound in four. Four folios (13 7/8 x 9 1/8 inches; 353 x 232 mm)). [viii], 250, [iv], 202, [27, table], [1, blank]; [8], 9-61, [1, blank]; 121, 183, [1, blank], [10, table]; 431, 437-438, 431-432, 438-464, [16, table]; [viii], 132, 135-798; 799-1080, 1080-1189, 1191-1192, 1192-1371, 1371-1592, [58, table]. Seven title pages within engraved woodcut borders (McKerrow and Ferguson 147a,148, 122, and 138), numerous ornamental intials, head- and tailpieces. Black letter, double column. Index to Vols I and II divided and bound at end of each section. The History of Scotland is bound after the two parts of the History of Ireland in Volume II, as in Lowndes. Complete but with manyof the usual excised leaves apparently supplied from 18th-century facsimiles as is commonly found, and mostly in the third volume.

Full 18th-century tan calf. Boards ruled and stamped in gilt. Spines ruled and lettered in gilt. Board edges ruled in gilt. Gilt dentelles. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Green silk page-markers. Some rubbing and repairs along outer joints. Title-page for History of Ireland with a small marginal tear, not affecting engraving. Vol III, part I: Title-page is trimmed and mounted. There is some staining to inner margin. Volume III, part II with the penultimate leaf with repairs and the final leaf being cut down and mounted to verso. Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown of each volume. Still overall a very good, clean copy.

Holinshed's Chronicles was the source for many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard II, Richard III, the Henry Plays, Macbeth and Cymbeline. The first edition of the Chronicles was originally thought to be Shakespeare's source, but the work of Boswell-Stone and Anders established this second edition as the true Shakespeare edition.

The Chronicles were always politically sensitive. This ‘newlie augmented' edition contained several passages, which were brought to the attention of Queen Elizabeth I. These were mainly concerned with Anglo-Scottish affairs, Mary Queen of Scots, the Babington conspiracy and Leicester's campaign in the Low Countries. Elizabeth ordered the Archbishop of Canterbury to recall the book, which resulted in the numerous cancels to be found in volumes II and III.

"In 1587 a second edition of Holinshed's Chronicles appeared. It was a substantial undertaking. The colophon to this text indicates that it was printed cum privilegio, that is, under a royal privilege, by Henry Denham at the sign of The Star in Aldersgate at the expense of John Harrison, George Bishop, Ralph Newbury, and Thomas Woodcocke... Holinshed's Chronicles of 1587 were castrated and reformed in three stages. The hands of Randolph, Killigrew, and Hammond clearly dictated the earliest stage of censorship evident in the earliest revised state of the text. Their work removed passages in the continuation of the Scottish history that might jeopardize Anglo-Scottish relations, especially those concerned with English intervention in Scottish factional politics. In the continuation of the 'History of England' their reforms enhanced the stature of Leicester, distanced England from the duc d'Alençon, who had recently offended the Dutch, and polished accounts of English legal practice to insist that trials and executions in England were administered fairly and according to due process of law. The censors apparently acted with the speed required by the privy council's order, since the first stage of the censorship was probably completed during the first week of February. This can be detected in one cancel in the 'History of Scotland', containing revised text that refers to the 'now imprisoned queene of Scotland' (p. 443, sig. A6-7). Since the page with this reference was reset, the initial review and reformation, including the resetting of the cancel leaves, must have taken place within a week of the initial order for censorship and before Mary's execution on 8 February 1587. Then, once the text had been reformed to meet Killigrew's, Randolph's, and Hammond's requirements, it was fine-tuned, probably by Whitgift, since at this stage censorship eliminated much of a long history of the archbishops of Canterbury... All the castrations and cancels appear in the sections of the 1587 Chronicles that extended Holinshed's earlier histories of Scotland and England. Besides the few extant copies of the Chronicles that escaped castration and reformation, some copies exist that contain variant cancels together with more original leaves than the state of the text described in the STC... Without a census of extant copies of Holinshed's 1587 Chronicles, it is unclear how many copies reflect each successive state of the text. Since the sale was stayed and the subsequent reformations made within a month of the book's completion and initial publication, copies with a fully uncensored text appear to be very rare... And although a particular copy may predominantly reflect a given state of the text of 1587, two circumstances may produce yet more variation. It is possible that in any one copy, where leaves should have been castrated and replaced with cancels, the site none the less may have been overlooked and the castration not made. Thus original leaves in one site (or more) may coexist in a copy with cancels elsewhere. Conversely, a castration may have been made, but the cancel not added. As a further complication, besides the variations that may have been produced in the sixteenth-century printing house, some copies of the Chronicles result from changes produced by antiquarian interests in the eighteenth century. Between 1723 and 1728 three facsimile reprints of the castrated leaves were sold, with the clear intention that they should be sophisticated into existing copies of the Chronicles to replace cancels and missing leaves. Consequently many copies of the 1587 edition have eighteenth-century leaves sophisticated at one or more of the castration sites." (Oxford DNB).

Lowndes, p1086; Pforzheimer 1577 9 (first edition); STC 13569.

HBS 68909.

$27,500.