[1874] Trilogy. Conversations Between Three Friends on the Emendations of Shakespeare's Text Contained in Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio, 1632, and Employed By Recent Editors of the Poet's Works

Description

Fine Binding, First Edition, Leather Binding, Limited Edition, Very Scarce

The first and only edition of this vanishingly scarce limited edition work, limited to only twenty-five unnumbered copies.

Last seen at auction in 1979

Bound in a striking full crushed morocco unsigned binding. 

A fascinating work by John Payne Collier, defending his "discovery" of the 'Perkins Folio'.

Collier was a controversial Shakespearean critic, and forger; he produced a series of literary fabrications, "discovering" a number of documents relating to Shakespeare's life and business. Most important was his Perkins Folio, a copy of the 1632 Second Folio, which had a number of manuscripts emendations, which Collier said were in the hand of an "old corrector" named Perkins. 

He produced this forged Folio in 1852, and it immediately came under fire. Among the first of the critics was the author's good friend, the historian Alexander Dyce.

This 'Trilogy' was published some two decades after the forgeries were discovered. Collier endeavours in this volume to defend the forgeries, which he still claimed to be genuine. 

Bookplate of W. A. Foyle of Beeleigh Abbey to the front paste down.