Shakespeares Lucrece. Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition, 1594

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905. First Thus. One of 1000 copies, originally released in a set of five volumes. Full vellum with gilt to spines and boards, measuring 250 x 200mm. Front board bowed; lower ties present but upper ties missing from front and rear. Offsetting to front and rear pastedowns. Internally clean and unmarked, with illustrations and text from the Malone Collection of the Bodleian Library.

Originally issued in a set of five volumes, reproducing the exceptional Malone Collection copies of Shakespeare's first editions. "Shakespeare's long poem Lucrece tales place as Rome becomes a republic. As a minor epic (a genre popular in Shakespeare's time), it centers on figures of seemingly secondard importance...focusing initially on Tarquin's desire for Lucrece, whom he rapes" (Folger). Following the assault, emphasis shifts away from Tarquin's interiority and attempts to justify his impending violence and toward Lucrece herself as she struggles with an act that violated her as a person, and which also alters her marital and social value.