I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
The London Stage;
London: Sherwood, Jones and Co., 1825. Item #06523
A Library of the English Stage in Four Volumes - A Regency Theater in Miniature
The London Stage - From Garrick to Sheridan, Printed from Acting Copies
LONDON STAGE. The London Stage; A collection of the most reputed tragedies, comedies, operas, melo-dramas, farces and interludes. Accurately printed from acting copies, as performed at the Theatres Royal, and carefully collated and revised. London: Sherwood, Jones and Co., [1825-27].
First edition. Four octavo volumes (8 1/2 x 5 3/8 inches; 216 x 137 mm.). Each volume with title-page printed in black and pale blue, a multi-portrait engraved frontispiece, and an early manuscript “index” leaf. Profusely illustrated throughout, each play with a woodcut vignette by Byfield, Dodd, Williamson, and others.
Six of the woodcuts are by George Cruikshank, viz. "Dragon of Wantley," "Tom Thumb," and "The Lord of the Manor" in the second volume, and "Monsieur Tonson," "Crononhotonthologos," and "The Recruiting Sergeant" in the third volume. That to the "Lord of the Manor" is the only one signed, but I have them all signed by the artist in ink." (Cohn #507 p. 150).
** In the present copy, the woodcuts by George Cruikshank are in volume IV.
Bound ca. 1825 in full dark blue diced calf. Covers bordered in gilt, spines with five shallow raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers. Each volume with the ink name "Fiske" on a front blank leaf, volume one with a neat ink inscription "Jane Martha Hicks Beach/August 7th 1827". Some rubbing to joints, but still a sound and attractive contemporary set. Housed in an early blue cloth slipcase.
Each volume with the armorial bookplate of the Dyne family on the front paste-down, depicting three goats and a bird on a fess, with a crest of a bearded figure in a checkered cap and the motto “Terrere nolo timere nescio” (“I do not wish to terrify; I do not know how to fear”).
A substantial and highly engaging anthology of the English stage at the close of the Regency period, The London Stage gathers together a remarkably broad dramatic canon, drawn “from acting copies” as performed at the Theatres Royal. The importance of this claim cannot be overstated: these texts reflect theatrical practice-cuts, adaptations, and stage-ready dialogue - rather than purely literary versions, offering a rare and practical insight into early nineteenth-century performance culture.
The collection encompasses works by many of the principal dramatists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including William Congreve, George Farquhar, John Gay, Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Samuel Foote, alongside important theatrical figures such as David Garrick and John Philip Kemble. The range extends from Restoration comedy through sentimental drama and ballad opera to late Georgian melodrama, with additional contributions by Susanna Centlivre, Hannah Cowley, Thomas Holcroft, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Elizabeth Inchbald, among many others. In effect, the work functions as a compact theatrical library, bringing together over a century of dramatic literature as it lived in performance rather than on the printed page.
The inclusion of multi-portrait frontispieces further situates the work within the living theater of its day, celebrating the actors and personalities who defined the London stage. The manuscript index leaves - clearly the work of an early owner - suggest active consultation and practical use, perhaps by a reader engaged in recitation, amateur theatricals, or dramatic study.
Sets preserved in contemporary diced calf are increasingly scarce, particularly when retaining their original structure and accompanied by early provenance. The Dyne armorial bookplates lend the present set an added note of distinction and continuity, enhancing both its aesthetic appeal and historical resonance.
A handsome and evocative survival—at once a working theatrical compendium and a remarkably complete snapshot of the English stage in its Regency prime.
Cohn 507.
Price: $1,250.00