A splendid copy of Lionel Booth’s facsimile of Shakespeare’s First Folio, handsomely bound by Francis Bedford (1799-1883), one of the greatest English bookbinders of the nineteenth century.

Booth’s work was an attempt to faithfully reproduce the text of the First Folio but using a modern typeface, cut specifically for the purpose. Although ultimately not a financial success, Booth’s labour of love was met with an enthusiastic reception by contemporary critics. As one wrote: “What [Booth] has done is for general readers of the poet, worth more than all the criticism and illustration and commentary which the two and a half centuries since Shakespeare died produced” (The Press). A critic in the Daily Telegraph concurred, calling it “the most commendable act performed of late years in Shakespearology”, as it placed “in the hands of the public a simple reproduction of the folio of 1623. That rare edition has always been the fountain-head of authority, though somewhat choked by weeds of errors. In plucking these away, emendators have too often ‘plucked out brain and all’, their improvements frequently serving to destroy the most Shakespearean of Shakespeare’s fancies”.

The present copy was owned by Henry Francis Redhead Yorke R.N. (1842-1919), son of the Whig politician Henry Galgacus Redhead Yorke (1802-1848), one of the first members of mixed ethnicity to sit in the House of Commons, and grandson of Henry Redhead Yorke (1772-1813), the radical writer and publicist.