The Dramatick Works of Beaumont and Fletcher; Collated with all the Former Editions, and Corrected; With Notes, Critical and Explanatory, By Various Commentators; And Adorned with Fifty-Four Original Engravings. Complete in Ten Volumes, Printed By T. Sherlock, and P. Elmsley, London, 1778, full original leather, 8.75 x 5.5”, 8vo.
In as-is condition. Bindings copies. Various spines split with fragile bindings overall. Heavy flaking and red rot to joints and spine ends. Spines heavily abraded with moderate wear overall to surface of leather. Various front boards detached. Fragile overall. Textblocks nicely preserved with minor instances of toning, age stain and finger soiling. Minor offsetting from plates. Signature of Alexander Fraser Tytler on title of first volume. Tytler’s manuscript transcriptions at leaves 113-128 pp in volume I. Leaves were missing and these have been trimmed and added by him. A worthy candidate for restoration, if desired.
Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813) provenance. Tytler was a Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian who was a Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh. Fabulous manuscript in hand in the first volume. Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), bot poets of a high order, powerful in their expressions of passion and tragic despair in a single play. Their work was superior in invention, scholarship, and charm to anything else in the Elizabethan age except the best of Shakespeare, who in some instances seems positively antiquarian in comparison.
FORN-MSB-0623-Shelf722-LH102