Hamlet: As Performed by Edwin Booth

  • New York: Baker & Godwin, 1866
By William Shakespeare; Edwin Booth [performer]
New York: Baker & Godwin, 1866. Good +. New York: Baker & Godwin, 1866. First Thus. Octavo (23cm); publisher's buff pictorial wrappers; vi,[3]-40pp. (complete despite error in pagination); engraved frontispiece, pictorial title page repeating upper cover illustration, illus. throughout. Long tear along spine edge slightly affecting upper cover, spine ends rather chipped, especially along bottom third, contemporary price rubber stamp to front cover ("Pay But 25 cts"); a Good, internally clean and sound example.

Scarce edition of Hamlet issued in conjunction with the 100th consecutive performance of Edwin Booth in the titular role at the Winter Garden in New York. The upper cover is adorned with a portrait of a very contemplative Booth dressed for the role executed by the firm J.S. Davis & Speer. Just a year earlier his younger brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln and was hanged two weeks later.

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