SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616) [and John FLETCHER (1579-1625)] – THEOBALD, Lewis (1688-1744). Double Falshood; or, The Distrest Lovers. A Play, As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane . London: J. Watts, 1728. First edition of a play believed to be based on a lost work by Shakespeare and Fletcher. The Arden Shakespeare edition of Double Falsehood (2010) places it cautiously within Shakespeare’s canon, tracing its origins back to the lost play The History of Cardenio (1612-1613), based on an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quixote . Theobald’s sources for the present 1728 edition are believed to be later Restoration-period manuscript reworkings of the play, now lost, to which he then added his own alterations. Although Theobald faced accusations of forgery and deceit from his contemporaries, including Alexander Pope and from later critics, there appears to be a growing credibility to his insistence that Double Falshood contains elements of Shakespeare’s own hand. Bartlett 159; ESTC T34858; Jaggard p.304. Octavo (186 x 116mm). Variant with press figure 4 on p.58; woodcut initials, head-and tailpieces (lacking the half-title, bottom margin cropped just into signatures at A3 and A4). 20th-century quarter vellum, spine label lettered in gilt.
SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616) [and John FLETCHER (1579-1625)] – THEOBALD, Lewis (1688-1744). Double Falshood; or, The Distrest Lovers. A Play, As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane . London: J. Watts, 1728. First edition of a play believed to be based on a lost work by Shakespeare and Fletcher. The Arden Shakespeare edition of Double Falsehood (2010) places it cautiously within Shakespeare’s canon, tracing its origins back to the lost play The History of Cardenio (1612-1613), based on an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quixote . Theobald’s sources for the present 1728 edition are believed to be later Restoration-period manuscript reworkings of the play, now lost, to which he then added his own alterations. Although Theobald faced accusations of forgery and deceit from his contemporaries, including Alexander Pope and from later critics, there appears to be a growing credibility to his insistence that Double Falshood contains elements of Shakespeare’s own hand. Bartlett 159; ESTC T34858; Jaggard p.304. Octavo (186 x 116mm). Variant with press figure 4 on p.58; woodcut initials, head-and tailpieces (lacking the half-title, bottom margin cropped just into signatures at A3 and A4). 20th-century quarter vellum, spine label lettered in gilt.
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