King Richard III

Conteining his treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence: the pitiful murther of his innocent Nephewes: his tyrannicall usurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserved death. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Right honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his servants. By William Shake-speare. 4to. ff. [8]. Eight leaves, all in deceptive facsimile, from the second quarto of Richard III (STC 22315, Greg I, 142(b)), once perhaps offered as genuine. In addition to the title, these correspond exactly to leaves A3, C4, D4, L4, and M1–3, which in the Thomas Jolley–Halliwell–Tite–Locker–Church copy, now Huntington Library RB 69352, were at one time absent, and replaced by 19th-century pen facsimiles, presumably by John Harris, father or son. Since then, those supplied leaves have been re-replaced by photolithographic versions, and when the latter substitution was made, the present duplicates must have been printed as well, on old paper with horizontal chain lines and some artfully uncut edges. They were then elegantly bound in full polished calf, with a spine title dated '1598', and were clearly meant to be taken as genuine fragments of the rare original. In 1952, accordingly, the bookseller P. R. Dobell (Bertram Dobell's son and successor) sent the artefact to the Bodleian Library to compare with their copy, and was told by L. W. Hansen, Keeper of Printed Books and authority on Shakespeare texts, that 'the whole is in facsimile' (correspondence accompanies). Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.