DOVES PRESS. SHAKESPEARE, William. ~ Venus and Adonis
One of only 200 copies on paper, there were also 15 on vellum. Printed in red and black. Sm. 4to., original full limp vellum by the Doves Bindery with its stamp on the lower turn-in, gilt lettering on spine. Near fine.
The text of Shakespeare’s narrative pastoral poem with which he launched his career as a poet comes from the first edition printed in 1593 by Richard Field. It tells of Venus’s unrequited love for the incredibly beautiful Adonis and her attempted seduction of him, foiled by his preference for hunting which leads to his being killed by a wild boar.
Venus and Adonis was extremely popular and his first bestseller which he published at the age of 29 in the year when the theatres were closed because of the plague.
Cobden-Sanderson, having decided he could not complete a full set of Shakespeare as he had once wished, decided around this time to make those he did print representative of Shakespeare’s different writing. In the September of the year he was printing Venus and Adonis, Cobden-Sanderson wrote “And how magnificent are the lines of Shakespeare! Why am I not ‘content’ having yet to explore and note all the divine ideas and thoughts so miraculously set to words by him?”