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Shakespeare Texts
The central volume in the Shakespeare Centre Library collections is a fine copy of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, 'The First Folio', published in 1623. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th folio volumes are also represented and several quarto editions of the plays including King Lear (1608 [1619]), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600 [1619]), and The Merchant of Venice (1600 [1619]) are representative of Shakespeare's early texts. Sources for ShakespeareTo support study of Shakespeare's life, work and times the Library's Special Collections cover a wide range of subjects in over 800 volumes which would have been available on the bookstalls of Elizabethan and Jacobean London, or in the libraries of the playwright's patrons and their immediate successors. These include direct sources such as Raphael Holinshed' s Chronicles (1577 and 1587 editions), The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families, by Edward Halle (1550), Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , including a copy of the first edition (1579) which belonged to Shakespeare's first patron Lord Strange, and copies of the 1603 and 1612 editions printed by Richard Field, who had settled in London after growing up in Stratford-upon-Avon a few years ahead of William Shakespeare. Alongside books on education, including Richard Mulcaster's Positions… for the Training up of Children (1581) and Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster (1571), are volumes on falconry - Latham's Falconry (1615); law - A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forrest, by John Manwood (1598); gardening - Thomas Hill's The Profitable Arte… (1574). Also the works of contemporary poets and playwrights including Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1613), Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (1611), Ben Jonson's Works (1616) are to be found here. Early Herbals and MedicineA special collection of early herbals and medical books, from the Grete Herbal (1529), to John Gerard's Herball (1597 and later editions) and John Parkinson Paradisi in Sole (1629) has been accumulated around first edition copies (1657) of Select Observations on English Bodies, by Shakespeare's son-in-law, the physician John Hall. DramaThe Shakespeare Memorial Theatre's extensive collection of pre-1700 play texts includes the work of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Thomas Otway, John Webster, and Aphra Behn. Use of the Early Printed Book CollectionMany items in the collection have been microfilmed, and readers will be encouraged to use microform copies, unless original material has been specially requested and conditions of use agreed with the Special Collections Librarian. Certain volumes including the Folio and quarto editions of Shakespeare's works are available only for specialist research work and access must be booked in advance. Facsimile volumes of many of the most important editions are available for Reading Room study.
If you wish to study original items published before 1700 you should contact the Special Collections Librarian, Marian Pringle, well in advance of your visit. |
