The Workes - photo 1
The Workes - photo 2
The Workes - photo 3

The Workes

Lot 21
06.10.2022 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 15 120
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 813737
Lot 21 | The Workes
Estimate value
$ 8 000 – 12 000
The Workes

Ben Jonson, 1616 and 1640

JONSON, Benjamin (1572-1637). The Workes. London: William Stansby, 1616 and Richard Meighen, 1640.



The fine Benz copy of the authoritative first edition of Jonson's Works. Although perhaps fated to be always known as the second-best English playwright after his colleague William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was famous in his own time for his radiant comic wit, and his plays were the first to be published in the prestigious folio format. Jonson oversaw their publication himself, revising the available quarto texts and introducing editorial material—even attending the press and correcting sheets as they were printed.



Bibliographical variations of the Works are not uncommon; the contents of this small-paper set follow the collations given in Pforzheimer, except for the bound order of the parts in volumes 2 and 3. The varying arrangment and composition of the parts of volumes 2 and 3 are the result of the fact that some of them were printed as early as 1631. According to the Pforzheimer catalogue, "as first printed, Sig [A] was a blank, there being no general title. In 1640, a number of these 1631 plays still remaining unsold, sheet [A1 and 6] was again passed through the press, this time of Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett, and the general-title…printed on recto [A]. This title refers only to the three plays printed in 1631 and describes them as 'the Second Volume.' However, bound with these three 1631 plays are normally found the three parts containing the masques, plays and miscellany dated 1640 (or 1641) which have no general-title nor any other preliminary matter. The fact that over a period of years the 1631 plays may have been sold as a supplementary volume to the 1616 Workes would easily account for their being described as the second volume quite aside from the explicit statement of the 1640 general-title." The present copy contains all the parts, with the general title printed in 1640. Rare in such fine condition. Pforzheimer 559, 560 (d).



Three volumes in two, folio (270 x 170mm). Engraved title by William Hole (Pforzheimer's third state) in first volume, with part title to Every Man out of his Humour in woodcut border (Pforzheimer's first state) and part title to Cynthia's Revels with woodcut border, Poetaster with letterpress issue of the part title; second issue of part 2 with letterpress general title, early state of The Diviell is an Asse part title (a few scattered stains). 19th-century red morocco gilt by Riviere, edge gilt. Provenance: Doris L. Benz (bookplate; her sale, Christie's, 16 November 1984, lot 189).

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