Printed in London, [by Henry Bynneman] for John Harrison, 1577.

Text in English, with a few quotations in Latin. Three parts in one thick Folio volume. Each part with a separate woodcut title-page and separate pagination. Illustrated with numerous woodcut scenes and portraits!

FIRST EDITION, PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED WITH HUNDREDS OF FASCINATING WOODCUTS! (This 1577 edition is considerably rarer than the 1587 Second Edition, which had no illustrations.)

This volume contains 'The Description of Britaine', 'The Historie of Englande', 'The Description of Scotlande', 'The Historie of Scotlande', 'The Description of Irelande' and 'The Historie of Irelande'. While the history of England in this volume covers the period from its origin up to the Norman conquest (the more recent events being covered in Vol.II), the entire histories of Scotland and Ireland, up to the current events of the 1570s, are included in this volume.

Raphael Holinshed's comprehensive history of Britain, Scotland, and Ireland is ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED AND INFLUENTIAL ENGLISH BOOKS OF THE ELIZABETHAN ERA. The Holinshed Chronicle served as the source and inspiration for several Renaissance writers, including William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. It was the foremost account of British history available at the time, and DID MORE TO SHAPE ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE THAN ANY OTHER ENGLISH HISTORICAL WORK.

This magnificent work is, therefore, a cornerstone of any major Elizabethan/Shakespearian book collection!

"Whatever the long-range intellectual goals of Holinshed, he had the journalist's eye for sensationalism; he stresses crimes, both political and erotic, physical mutilations, marvels, monstrosities and absurdities.” (Sargent, 25).

An immediate success upon publication, Holinshed's Chronicles "form a very valuable repertory of historical information. [...] The chronicler fully justified his claim 'to have had an especial eye unto the truth of things.” (DNB).

We are offering the complete "Firste Volume”, comprising three parts, bound together in an attractive 16th-century English binding. The three constituent parts of this thick folio volume are often treated by bibliographers as individual volumes in their own right, as each has its own title and separate pagination.

This monumental undertaking, while superintended by Holinshed, was, in fact, a collective effort involving several authors. In this tripartite volume the chronicles for each of the three countries (England, Scotland & Ireland) are divided into two sections: "Description" and "History." Holinshed himself wrote "The Historie of England"; "The Description of England" is by William Harrison, rector of Radwinter and canon of Windsor; "The History and Description of Scotlande" and the "History of Irelande" are by Richard Staynehurst and Edward Campion.

The original idea for this work began with Reginald Wolfe (a Dutch-born English Protestant printer and one of the original members of the Royal Stationers' Company), who conceived the idea of publishing a "Universal Cosmography of the whole world, and therewith particular histories of every known nation". He wanted the work to be printed in English, with maps and illustrations. When Wolfe realised he could not complete this project on his own, he hired Raphael Holinshed and William Harrison to assist him. Having devoted 25 years to the compilation of the English, Scottish and Irish portions, Wolfe left it unfinished at his death in 1573. Raphael Holinshed then took over the project. He narrowed its scope to the British Isles and abandoned the plan to include maps, by then rendered unnecessary by the preparation of Saxton's atlas.

Henry Bynneman, Reginald Wolfe's apprentice and successor, printed the work. Copies exist bearing various imprints with the names of Hunne, John Harrison, Lucas Harrison or George Bishop, who were enlisted "to defray the charges for the impression."

According to Luborsky and Ingram, the richly illustrated 1577 First Edition of the Holinshed Chronicle "represent[s] (together with the herbals and emblem books) the most copiously illustrated secular texts of the Tudor era. [...] Both the narrative and descriptive cuts are printed to relate to the pertinent texts; the images of the rulers function as initials do, to signal a new topic". While some of the cuts are reuses, "most of the narrative and descriptive cuts are new and many artisans were engaged in their making."

The perennial importance of the Chronicles lies largely in the fact that "the Elizabethan dramatists drew many of their plots from Holinshed's pages,” (Pforzheimer 494 note). "Nearly all of [Shakespeare's] historical plays, as well as Macbeth, King Lear, and part of Cymbeline, are based on Holinshed.” (DNB).

Please note that the source material for Shakespeare's Macbeth, King Lear, and Cymbeline is all contained in the 'Firste Volume' offered here: Part II (Scotland), pp.206-8 and 242-6); Part I (England), pp.19-21; and Part I (England), pp.45-47, respectively.

"Not only is Holinshed's Historie of Scotlande (1577) a major part of Tudor historiography, it is also of immense value to readers and researchers as a source text for William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The Chronicles gave rise to more plays than any other historiographical work of its time and there is an impressive range of dramatic genres and literary adaptations that have emerged from Holinshed's work. Shakespeare probably used the second edition of Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) as a key source for his English history plays (for instance, to write Richard III and Henry V), as well as an inspiration for Cymbeline and King Lear.

Holinshed's Historie of Scotlande was an important source text for Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1606-1607). It allowed Shakespeare to engage with the history of Scotland at a point in time when, following the death of Elizabeth I., England had become a nation ruled by a Scottish Stuart King. Shakespeare's adaptation of stories found in Holinshed's Historie are therefore not only a source of creative inspiration, but a way of facing pressing political questions through the lens of history.

Shakespeare's Macbeth presents a fascinating engagement with Holinshed's historiography and a creative rewriting of Holinshed's account of different events and time periods. Macbeth draws on at least two periods of medieval Scottish history that are portrayed separately by Holinshed: the reign and murder of King Dubh (sometimes also spelled as 'Duff'), who ruled Scotland from about 962 to 967 AD, and the reign and assassination of King Duncan, who ruled from 1034 to 1040 AD. Shakespeare takes events from these two periods and merges them together to weave the plot for Macbeth.

Especially the portrayal of Lady Macbeth and the three 'weird sisters', or witches, in Shakespeare's play draws on Dubh's and Duncan's stories in Holinshed. In Holinshed's account of the short reign of Dubh, one of his nobles, Donwald, becomes dissatisfied with the King's rule and is persuaded by his wife to act on his feelings of frustration and anger: "She [...] counselled him [...] to make him away and shewed him the meanes whereby he might accomplishe it. Donwalde thus being the more kindled in wrath by the words of his wife, determined to follow hyr advice in the execution of so haynous an acte." (Historie of Scotlande, p. 208)

Donwald and his wife plot to kill Dubh: they organise a banquet and make his chamberlains drunk, so that the King's murder can be committed without witnesses or interruption. These events are echoed in Act II of Shakespeare's play, when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth devise their plan to assassinate King Duncan. Lady Macbeth and Donwald's wife are framed as women with considerable influence over their husbands and become the instigators of regicide. Although Shakespeare gives a much greater role to Lady Macbeth, Holinshed's text, through further annotations in the margins, already draws special attention to the events as a consequence of female influence: "The womans evill counsell is followed" (p. 208).

Shakespeare also drew substantially on Holinshed's account of the reign of King Duncan, especially when Macbeth and Banquo encounter three women who prophesy that Macbeth will be King of Scotland: "It fortuned as Makbeth and Banquho journied towards Fores, where the king as then lay, they went sporting by the way togither without other companie, save only themselves, passing through the woodes and fieldes, when sudenly in the middes of a laund, there met them three women in straunge and ferly apparell, resembling creatures of an elder worlde, whom when they attentively behelde, wondering much at the sight, the first of them spake and sayde; All hayle Makbeth, Thane of Glammis (for he had lately entred into that dignitie and office by the death of his father Synel.) The second of them said: Hayle Makbeth thane of Cawder: but the third sayde; All hayle Makbeth that hereafter shall be king of Scotland.' (p. 243)

Holinshed's text, like Shakespeare's, gives these three women immense power as it is their prophecy which sets the following events into motion. However, Holinshed's text describes the women as dressed in 'strange and ferly apparel' [...], and Macbeth and Banquo initially do not believe their eyes. The encounter appears to them as a 'fantasticall illusion'. The three women are presented variously as 'creatures of an elder worlde', 'weird sisters or feiries', and as 'Goddesses of destinie, or els some Nymphes or Feiries, endewed with knowledge of prophesie by their nicromanticall science' (p. 244). Holinshed's text does not, in fact, call them witches. The phrase 'weird sisters' is taken up by Shakespeare in the women's first encounter with Macbeth.

Interweaving elements of the story of King Duff with an account of King Duncan's assassination by Macbeth, Shakespeare constructs an entirely new vision of events for his play." (Holinshed's Historie of Scotlande & William Shakespeare's Macbeth, from The Munich Shakespeare Library website)

While Holinshed's influence on Shakespeare is notorious, it is less well known that even in the next century, the Chronicles were a great inspiration and influence on another luminary of English literature - John Milton. "Holinshed's most learned literary reader, John Milton, [...] studied Holinshed extensively over the years building up to the Civil War (1639 - 42), making annotations in his commonplace-book and working directly on plans for an historical epic. He turned to the Chronicles again as he composed his History of Britain during a second intense period of political crisis between 1647 and 1649. On both occasions Milton applied his reading of Holinshed to contemporary developments and in the former he also planned to use the Chronicles as a literary source. Although the poet abandoned his plans for an Arthurian epic because he decided there was no basis in truth for these 'legends' […]. The story of King Lear and his daughter Cordelia was especially important to him and he seems to have combined his reading of Holinshed with Shakespeare's tragedy as he worked on the prose construction of this tale.” (Paulina Kewes, et al., The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's Chronicles, p.587)

STC 13568.5; Pforzheimer 494; Bartlett 222; Grolier/Langland to Wither 146; Grolier/English 6; Luborsky & Ingram, English Illustrated Books, I, pp. 452-68.

Three parts bound in one thick volume; Chancery Folio (leaves measure 27&frac 12; cm x 19 cm). Contemporary (late 16th-century) English blind-stamped brown calf over pasteboard; both covers paneled with concentric ornamental borders: diamond-shaped inner border within two outer rectangular borders, all blind-tooled with leafy and floral motifs; spine with raised bands and blind tooling in compartments. One (of two) brass clasp retained.

Pagination:
Part I: [16] pages, 124 (i.e. 126) leaves [=252 pages], [1], 289, [1] pages.
Part II. [8], 22, [2], 518, [26] pages.
Part III. [4], 28 leaves (i.e. 56 pages), 115, [1] pages.
COMPLETE, except only for four unnumbered leaves at the end, i.e. the Index ('Table') and Errata to the History of Ireland. ALL TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS COMPLETE, and all title-pages and preliminaries are present; even the integral blank b₆ at the end of the Description of Scotland is present).

Three title-pages within woodcut borders (McKerrow and Ferguson 147a); author's woodcut arms on versos of titles. Profusely illustrated with over 670 woodcuts in text (including historical scenes and portraits).

Numerous woodcut initials, including three very large (approx. 8½ x 8½ cm and 7x7 cm, at opening of dedications to each part) historiated initials.

Text printed in double column in elegant upright Gothic type (Black Letter), with marginal notes printed in small Roman type; Latin quotes in text, as well as dedications, printed in Italic; Index, in quadruple columns in small roman type.

Preliminaries to 'England' include Holinshed's general dedicatory epistle to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, Lord High Treasurer and chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I, followed by 'The Preface to the Reader', and a separate dedication (for the Description of England) by William Harrison to Sir William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and the list of 'The names of Authors from whome this Historie of England is collected'. At the end of the Description of England are 'Faultes escaped' [i.e. Errata].

The History of Scotland with its own dedication by Holinshed to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Elizabeth I; the History is followed by an extensive index, 'A Table of the principall matters touched in the Historie of Scotland...'.

The History of Ireland with its own dedication by Holinshed to Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

Front pastedown with a large armorial bookplate of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, 6th Baronet (1739-1806), Scottish banker, benefactor and author, one of the co-founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Brought up in dignified poverty, Forbes worked his way up from apprentice to partner at Coutts Bank, and at twenty-four was head of his own banking-house. Forbes had become an authority on finance, and in 1783 he took part in preparing the revised Bankruptcy Act. William Pitt used to consult him, and adopted in 1790 some of his suggestions on the stamps on bills of exchange. The company in 1838 became the Union Bank of Scotland. Forbes was also a prominent Freemason, having served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1776–1778. He was a member of Samuel Johnson's literary dining club, and is mentioned in James Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. His other friends included the writer Sir Walter Scott, the philosopher Edmund Burke and and the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, who painted his portrait.

Very Good antiquarian condition. Complete (except for the Index and Errata to Ireland at the end). Binding slightly rubbed with light edge-wear; front joint with a harmless partial crack at the top, but still solid (both boards firmly attached, binding tight). Of the two original clasps, only one is retained (although does not lock), the other one is lost. Internally with some scattered soiling, mostly marginal. First title-page fully remargined ('window-mounted') with minor peripheral losses to its woodcut border, and with the top line (words 'The Firste Volume of the') inked out by an early hand. The following 2 preliminary leaves (dedication) lightly creased and with marginal restorations affecting a couple of words. A few other leaves with small tears (some repaired), mostly marginal and without loss, except for a small hole in the Errata leaf to ‘The Description of England’ which has a small torn hole in text repaired with tissue with minor loss, and a torn-off corner to leaf E3 in 'The History of Ireland', restored with tissue paper with minor loss of text and just touching one woodcut. The final page of 'The History of Ireland' cut out and window-mounted with tissue-paper, preserving most of the text of the 'History' on recto, and about three-quarters of text of the List of Governors of Ireland on verso. Margins cropped somewhat short, sometimes causing partial shaving off to pagination numbers and some words in marginal notes, but never touching the main text.Blank verso of the second leaf of general Dedication with early ink scribbling or pen-trial; a couple further leaves with small manuscript marginal notes in an early hand. In all, a charming, genuine example, with lots of character, well-used over the centuries, but still quite solid, and perfectly readable, essentially complete, and rather well-preserved in an attractive contemporary binding.