The Works of Ben Jonson, in Nine Volumes, With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir, by W. Gifford. 9 vols (set)

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~FULL PAGINATION: ccclxi, (1), 162 + 551 + 500 + 542 + 455 + 514 + 447 + 464 + 444pp ~Original tan calf boards, gilt fillets and blind rolls framing boards, blind decor to board edges. Rebacked in tan cloth, black gilt cloth labels to spines. Mild wear to board edges. 8vos (13.8 x 21.5cm). Starting to gutters of some endpapers; neat paper repairs to others. Hinges sound. Armorial bookplate to inside front boards of Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840-1928), judge, scholar, and politician: Madden was the author of two standard legal texts, but ‘it was his lively, witty, and original studies of Shakespeare that brought him wider popularity’; his 1897 The Diary of Master William Silence ‘took the novel approach of using sport as the key to disputed plays or passages’ (Dictionary of Irish Biography). Pencil annot to blank front endpage of vol. I. Frontis port & plate (facsimile autograph) to vol. I. Minor annots to blank rear endpage & inside rear board in some vols. Contents: Vol. I: Memoirs of Jonson, &c. Every Man in his Humour / vol. II: Every Man out of his Humour. Cynthia’s Revels. The Poetaster / vol. III: Sejanus. Volpone, or The Fox. Epicoene, or The Silent Woman / vol. IV: The Alchemist. Catiline. Bartholomew Fair / vol. V: The Devil is an Ass. The Staple of News. The New Inn / vol. VI: The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled. A Tale of a Tub. The Sad Shepherd, or A Tale of Robin Hood. The Case is Altered. Entertainments, &c. / vol. VII: Masques at Court / vol. VIII: Masques. Epigrams. Underwoods — v. 9. Underwoods. Translations, &c. Discoveries. English grammar. Jonsonus Virbius, or The Memory of Ben Jonson. Index. Gifford’s edition, published 200 years after the first folio of Jonson’s works, published several of Jonson’s poems for the first time. Gifford’s edition ‘had enormous force in shaping Jonson’s critical and political reputation in the years following its publication’; it ‘became the Jonson for the nineteenth century’ and remained the standard complete text until the 1950s (Lockwood, The Works of Ben Jonson (1816): Textual Essay, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online). ~Robust packaging. Tracking can be added to oveseas orders on request.