Schiller's Werke [a collection-distinguishing set in original bindings and box] by Schiller, Friedrich - 1822-1826

Stuttgart und Tübingen: Verlag der J. G. Cotta schen Buchhandlung, 1822-1826. First Thus. Paper-covered boards and in the Original Box. Very good. A Very Good set of Friedrich Schiller's Works in 18 volumes, with such volumes having differing dates ranging from 1822 through 1826 inclusive. The volumes are bound in paper cover boards, each having a spine label with the set's name written thereon in black ink. (On a few of the volumes, the spine writing has been obliterated.) The set is housed in the RARE ORIGINAL BOX which measures approximately 15 inches across X approximately 5 1/2 inches high X approximately 3 3/4 inches deep. Each Volume wears its original paper-covered boards and, as expected, each shows general wear -- including some rubbing through. The open-faced cardboard case is in good condition with general wear (particularly to the bottom edge) and shows some splitting to the seams. Nevertheless, the box is still holding itself together. The book bindings are provisional and buyers would most likely have had the volumes rebound and would have discarded the box as being of no further use. A RARE SET IN THE ORIGINAL BINDINGS AND BOX, the set is MENTIONED ON PAGE 64, on which page an image of this set also is provided, of Mark Godburn's excellent work titled "Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets" published by Oak Knoll Press in the US and by Private Libraries Association in the UK. As to this set, Godburn there states: "Another German box, one of the largest recorded from this period, held an eighteen-volume set of Schiller's Werke (1823-26). This box had marbled paper on the outside and the same green paper on the inside that covered the bindings. The books fit snugly in the box and probably were not issued with dust-jackets. The plain board bindings had handwritten spine labels and would not have warranted jacket protection for one thing. For another, the cumulative thickness of the thirty-six panels of eighteen dust jackets would have strained the box, possibly preventing all the volumes from fitting into it. The box served to keep the volumes together until sale, but...probably had no more intended permanence than the bindings." Complete sets such as this one with the volumes in their original provisional bindings and still residing in their large original box, one of the earliest -- and possibly the earliest -- such box still surviving, are EXCEEDINGLY RARE TO THE MARKET AND A PART OF BOOK PUBLISHING HISTORY WHICH WOULD ADD DISTINCTION TO ANY COLLECTION.