Properties
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- 9988
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T06:24:48.293Z
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- 9932
- text
- Copies of the 1609 edition of the *Sonnets* are now very scarce. A somewhat wide study of sale catalogues of the past 150 years reveals the presence in the book market of barely a dozen during that period. Many years have passed since a copy was sold at public auction, and the only recent evidence of the selling value of the book is the fact that the copy No. IX, *infra*, which was sold by public auction in 1864 for £225 15s. o.d., was acquired privately, a quarter of a century later, by a collector of New York for a thousand pounds. Of the eleven traceable copies which are enumerated below, one lacks the title-page,
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SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 63
# SHIKE-SPEARES
# SONNETS
Never before Imprinted.
AT LONDON
By G. Eld for T. T. and are
a. be false by a bawweth dwelling
a. Chief Church gate
1698
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64 SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE
and two have facsimile title-pages; of the remaining eight, three have the Aspley imprint and five the Wright imprint. Of the eleven copies, eight are in England, and three in private libraries in America. Of the British copies six are in public collections. The Earl of Ellesmere and Mr. Huth seem to be the only private English owners.¹
THE EDITION OF 1609.
Description.
The original edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets appeared with two title-pages varying in the name of the bookseller in the imprint. One issue ran:—
SHAKE-SPEARES | SONNETS | Neuer before Imprinted. | AT LONDON | By G. Eld for T. T. and are | to be solde by William Aspley. | 1609.
The title-page of the other issue ran:—
SHAKES-PEARES | SONNETS | Neuer before Imprinted. | AT LONDON | By G. Eld for T. T. and are | to be solde by John Wright, dwelling | at Christ Church gate. | 1609.
The volume is printed in quarto, containing in all forty leaves. Signature A, consisting of two leaves only, contains the title-page and dedication. The text of the Sonnets begins on signature B and ends on K recto. On K verso begins ‘A Louers complaint. | By | William Shake-speare’, and it ends with the close of the volume on L2 verso. Thus the signatures run:—A (two leaves), B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K in fours, and L (two leaves). There is no pagination; the leaves A1, A2, C4, D4, E4, F4, G4, H4, I4, are unsigned.
No. I.
British Museum.
Of the copies in the British Museum, that in the Grenville
¹ It is impossible to determine whether the three copies mentioned in the following sale catalogues can be rightly identified with any of the eleven enumerated copies, or whether they had, and have, a separate existence:—
1. A copy in the library of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, which was sold by the bookseller Osborn, of Gray’s Inn, in 1742.
2. A copy in the Duke of Marlborough’s library at White Knights, sold in 1819 for £37.
3. A copy in the collection of James Boswell the younger, which was sold in 1825 for £38 17s. od.
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SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE 65
collection (G. 11181), measuring $6\frac{3}{4}'' \times 4\frac{3}{4}''$ and bound in red morocco, is in fine condition. This has the Aspley imprint. A few pages are stained. This is possibly the copy with Aspley imprint, priced at £30 in Messrs. Longman’s sale list, *Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica*, 1815, p. 301, which fetched £40 19s. od. at the sale of a portion of John Bellingham Inglis’ library in June, 1826.
The second Museum copy (C. 21. c. 44), which measures $7\frac{1}{2}'' \times 5\frac{3}{2}''$, has the title-page and last leaf in a dirty condition, but otherwise it is a good copy. Some pages are mended. It is bound in yellow morocco. It was apparently sold with the library of B. H. Bright in 1845 for £34 10s. od. It has the Wright imprint. It was reproduced in Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles, No. 30, by Charles Praetorius in 1886.
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