SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616), JOHNSON, Samuel (1709-1784), HOPKINSON, Joseph (1770-1842, Editor), FIELD, Robert (1769-1819, Engraver)

The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. Corrected from the Latest and Best London Editions, with Notes, by Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. To which are Added, a Glossary and the Life of the Author. Embellished with a Striking Likeness from the Collection of His Grace the Duke of Chandos. First American Edition. Vols. I-VIII. Complete

Philadelphia: Bioren and Madan, 1795-96. 8 Volumes. 12mo. (6 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches). Vol.1: Title [2] Frontispiece [2] [i-iii] iv-xlviii, [1-3] 4-384. 432 pp. Vol. 2: [1-7] 8-412. 412 pp. Vol. 3: [1-7] 8-432. 432 pp. Vol. 4: [1-7] 8-447 [1]. 448 pp. Vol. 5: [1-7] 8-392. 392 pp. Vol. 6: [1-7] 8-388. 388 pp. Vol. 7: [1-7] 8-452. 452 pp. Vol. 8: [5] 8-304, [i-iii] iv [5-7] 8-128. 432 pp.

Contemporary tree sheep, rebacked, preserving spines in six compartments ruled gilt with red and brown morocco lettering-pieces in second and fourth compartments and gilt foliate in rest, [SHAKSPEARE'S | WORKS] in second compartment and volume number in fourth compartment. Some early ownership signatures on titles

A complete copy of the rare first American edition of the works of Shakespeare, here spelled "Shakspeare." This is the first edition to be printed outside the British Isles, with the first engraving of Shakespeare printed in the New World, in contemporary bindings in fine condition.

"Old World, he is not only thine! Our New World too has part, in his stupendous mind and heart." - Inscription on a Shakespeare statue in Central Park, erected 1872 In a time of high anti-British sentiment in the newly-formed United States, after the American Revolutionary War and before the War of 1812, Joseph Hopkinson, son of Founding Father Francis Hopkinson, decided to edit and publish an eight-volume set of that most English of writers, William Shakespeare. Later to be a US Congressman, Joseph brought out the first three volumes in 1795, and the remaining five in 1796. Joseph, whose father was also America's first composer, wrote the preface and "Life of the Author," marking the first publication of American literary criticism of Shakespeare. Befitting an American, Hopkinson, in his preface, takes issue with the competing "authoritative" British editorial interpretations of Shakespeare, in favor of a less-guided, more individual reckoning with his writing and its meaning. It was only sixty years prior, in 1730, that an American audience first saw a performance of a Shakespeare play, an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet in New York. At that point, Shakespeare had been dead for 114 years. It would seem that part of American tardiness on this matter was due to conservative public morality, as the preface to the first American edition is consumed with defending Shakespeare's plays against claims of moral indecency. Hopkinson assures his readership that the poet is a genius, if still yet imperfectly known, and asides, his contemporaries were even more base: "[W]e contend that none of his personages are expressly drawn to recommend vice, and that his plots are never, like those of Farquhar, and others, in a state of oppostition to conjugal virtue. His works indeed abound with exquisite maxims of morality." The stipple engraved frontispiece portrait of Shakespeare is the first published image of the author in America. The engraver, Robert Field, was a British artist, trained at the Royal Academy, who worked in Philadelphia, and made engravings of images of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Field first appeared in America in 1794 and worked in the young country for over a decade, spending time in Washington DC, and later, Canada and Jamaica. In a 1927 guide to Field's work, the author Harry Piers calls Field's Shakespeare portrait, "a poor reproduction of the original, and does not equal Field's other engravings" but to the modern eye there is a freshness to the less restrained marking method in Field's engraving that evokes the populism of Shakespeare's work and brings him to life. As Anna Kerr at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library writes, Shakespeare, from this first American edition forward, became imbricated in our nation's public life, inseparable from the United States and its conception of itself: "This first American edition, nonetheless, foreshadows the American engagement with Shakespeare throughout history, by people from every walk of life. Abraham Lincoln, for example, invoked the words of Shakespeare as political rhetoric during the Civil War, even as soldiers from both sides of the conflict performed his plays in between battles. Pioneers, miners, and farmers moving West often performed his plays as a form of entertainment during times of hardship. African-American actors and playwrights developed their own theatres in the early 19th century, from which Ira Aldridge, the noted Shakespearian actor, found his beginning, and subsequent immigrant movements to the United States have continued to engage with Shakespeare as a means of sharing in the American spirit, from Yiddish King Lear to Kabuki Macbeth." Contents: Vol. 1. Frontispiece; Title; Preface; The Life of Shakspeare; Shakspeare's Will Extracted from the Registry of the Archbishop of Canterbury; A Glossary, Explaining the Obsolete and Difficult Words in Shakspeare's Works; Tempest; Two Gentlemen of Verona; Merry Wives of Windsor; Measure for Measure; Comedy of Errors; Erratum. Vol. 2. Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labours Lost, Midsummer-Night's Dream, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It. Vol. 3. Taming of the Shrew, All's Well that Ends Well, Twelfth Night: or, What You Will, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth. Vol. 4. King John, Richard II, Henry IV, Part I; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V. Vol. 5. Henry VI, Part I; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; Richard III. Vol. 6. King Henry VIII, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra. Vol. 7. Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Titus Anronicus, Cymbeline, King Lear. Vol. 8. Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Advertisement, Dedication, and The Author's Poems including "Venus and Adonis," "Tarquin and Lucrece," Sonnets, "Passionate Pilgrim," and "A Lover's Complaint."

Evans 29496, 31180. ESTC W28892. Jaggard, p.507. Piers, Robert Field: Portrait Painter in Oils, Miniature and Water-Colours and Engraver, pp. 16, 194. Sabin 79727.

Item #38954

Price: $27,500.00