Shakespeare's Contemporaries. Beaumont (Francis) & Fletc...

Hammer

£1,100

Shakespeare's Contemporaries. Beaumont (Francis) & Fletcher (John), Comedies and Tragedies [...], first edition of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson, at the three Pidgeons (sic), and for Humphrey Moseley at the Princes Armes (sic) in St Pauls Church-yard, 1647, lacking the engraved allegorical frontispiece, black-ruled letterpress title-page, black-ruled double-column, decorative devices, collating: *², a-c⁴, d-e², f⁴, g², B-K⁴, L², ²A-S⁴, ³A-X⁴, ⁴A-I⁴, ⁵A-R⁴, ⁵S⁶, ⁵T-X⁴, ⁶A-K⁴, ⁶L⁶, ⁷A-C⁴, ⁷D², ⁷E-F⁴, ⁸A-C⁴, ⁸*D², ⁸D-F⁴, of which the letterpress title is repaired and supplied in manuscript facsimile in places, leaves c2, g2, B1, F2, L1, ²G3, ²H4 & ⁵H3 are repaired in places, ³E4 is defective - with loss to lower-right verso, ⁵E1 & ⁵E3 are also defective, though their loss is slight, ³N2 has an ink stain yet remains perfectly legible, and ⁸F4 (i.e. the final leaf) is tatty and creased, the whole contents with occasional tatty, slightly torn &/or chipped leaves in places throughout, contemporary speckled calf over boards, ruled in blind, upper-cover split and just holding, corners rubbed or bumped, enclosing foliate spandrels, seven compartment spine divided by raised bands, enclosing a gilt-lettered red morocco piece in the second, folio (32 x 22.5cm)

Provenance: 1) Thomæ; contemporary ?ownership ink manuscript inscription to [c4]; 2) Anthony Dalle; contemporaneous ink MS ownership inscription to [²S4]; 3) the Leveson-Gower family of Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, multi-generational marks of ownership, comprising La. Ja. Leveson inscription to title, Sir John Leveson Gower of Trentham in Stafford Shire Baronet Jacobean armorial bookplate to verso of title-page, The Marquis of Stafford bookplate to pastedown, ditto later cypher bookplate of the Duke of Sutherland, dated 1892.