The Sonnets

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Published by The Folio Society in 1948. Decorations by Reynolds Stone. 189 × 125 × 14 mm. Pp. [1–160]. Type: Per petua. Printed in green and black by the Chiswick Press. Bound by Stevenson in quarter green leather, red cloth boards. Pale grey dust-jacket printed in dark green. Although dated ‘MCMXLVII’ on the title-page the book was not issued until January 1948. The decorative head-pieces and title-page ornament were drawn in pen and ink and printed from line-blocks in green. The modern spelling text used was that of A.H. Bullen.

Some copies (including the present one) have a variant dust-jacket bearing advertisements at rear. It is probable that this jacket was printed around 1950 for remaining copies of the first impression.

Charles Ede says in Folio 21 that ‘great pains were taken to match the head-pieces to the optical width of each sonnet, and their accurate positioning gave the printer a somewhat nightmare problem’. This was the first in an informal series of poetry books, mostly by British poets, printed in crown octavo format, issued in quarter leather and usually illustrated with wood-engravings; the series was sometimes referred to as ‘The Folio Poets’. A new ‘Folio Poets’ series began in 2001. 

Condition

Externally with wear and bumping to spine tips, slight tanning to extremities, foxing to edges, while internally clean with some foxing to prelims and sporadic acidic transfer patches (left by previous bookmarks perhaps?). Unclipped dust wrapper with bright, but lightly foxed and tanned panels, some chipping and tears (now repaired with archival-grade tape), and some loss, particularly around the middle of the spine. Now placed in a removable archival sleeve.