The Works.: Collated with all the former editions, and corrected; with notes critical and explanatory. By Peter Whalley.

London: printed for D. Midwinter; W. Innys and J. Richardson [& 12 others in London]., 1756. A trailblazing edition - subscribed to by David Garrick and Peg Woffington First Whalley edition, presented here in a smart binding. This was "the first critical edition of the works of Ben Jonson" (ODNB), including "the first biography and critical account of Jonson to accompany his Works, and explanatory and interpretative notes to those texts" (Lockwood). It is also the first edition "to institute the generic classification which all editors have since followed, until the [2012 Cambridge edition]: rather than print Jonson's texts in the sequential order of the 1616 and 1640/1 folios, where (for instance) plays, masques, and poems published at different times in different volumes are kept apart, Whalley gathers texts together by kind, so that a reader moves through the full range of Jonson's dramatic texts, through his masques to his poetry... Whalley was the first editor to speculate in print about the documents and processes that lay behind the early printed texts and manuscripts that his edition reproduced" (Lockwood). The editor, Peter Whalley (1722-1791), was "one of the last commentators in the eighteenth century to defend Jonson's reputation, remarking favourably on his learning, his skill in characterization, and his imaginative plots, as well as the lyricism of some of his poems. [Whalley's] edition remained the standard one until replaced by that of William Gifford in 1816" (ODNB). Du Guernier's plates for the plays were first published in the edition of 1716-17 and Lockwood notes that they "represent one of the key strategies intended to market Jonson to a new reading audience". The list of subscribers runs to just 116 individuals and institutions, and includes the premier actors of the day, David Garrick and Peg Woffington. Seven volumes, octavo (195 x 123 mm). Early 20th-century half tree calf by Cross, binder to the King, spines richly gilt, dark red labels and dark green numbering roundels, sides and corners trimmed with a gilt foliate roll, Swirled Nonpareil pattern marbled sides, yellow edges. Engraved portrait frontispiece of Jonson by Vertue, 11 further engravings by Louis Du Guernier. Bound without general title page. A little rubbing to extremities, small crack at head of rear joint of vol. I, remains firm, endpapers browned by turn-ins, marginal paper repair to two leaves (pp. 187-8, vol. I; pp. 343-4, vol. IV), occasional light foxing but generally quite clean. A very nice, fresh set. ESTC T83079. The Monthly Review, "The Works of Ben Johnson: [Review]", vol. 15, 1756; Tom Lockwood, "The Works of Ben Jonson (1756): Textual Essay", The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online.