A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

A pleasing and early octavo printing. Engraved frontispiece, engraved head-piece and a six-line engraved initial at the beginning of the text Small 8vo, bound in later blue wrappers, hand calligraphed on the cover in brown ink. 93 pp. A fine and well preserved copy, the blue wrappers as pristine.

Edizione: very scarce. from the important theobold oeuvre. although theobold ultimately gave way to johnson in popularity, he remains one of the pre-eminent shakespearean editors. churton collins, writing in the dnb, claimed it “would not be too much to say that the text of shakespeare owes more to theobold than to any other editor.”<br> the collection also draws on two rival editions, j. tonson’s and r. walker’s. although the two are nearly identical, tonson issued an advertisement warning the public against “such useless, pirated, and maim’d editions, as are publish’d by the said r. walker.” <br> a midsummer night's dream contains many famous quotations among which are:<br>the course of true love never did run smooth.<br>(lysander, act 1 scene 1)<br><br>love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, <br>and therefore is winged cupid painted blind.<br>(helena, act 1 scene 1)<br><br>i know a bank where the wild thyme blows,<br>where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,<br>quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,<br>with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:<br>there sleeps titania sometime of the night, <br>lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.<br>(oberon, act 2 scene 1)<br><br>what angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?<br>(titania, act 3 scene 1)<br><br>to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.<br>(bottom, act 3 scene 1)<br><br>o, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd.<br>she was a vixen when she went to school,<br>and though she be but little, she is fierce.<br>(helena, act 3 scene 2)<br><br>cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad.<br>(puck, act 3 scene 2)<br><br>if we shadows have offended,<br>think but this, and all is mended,<br>that you have but slumbered here<br>while these visions did appear.<br>(puck, act 5 scene 1)