A Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters : To Which is Added, An Essay on the Faults of Shakespeare.
Boston: Printed by Munroe, Francis & Parker, Shakespeare Bookstore, no. 4, Cornhill, 1808.
Price: $350.00
About the item
Second American Edition. 187pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Contemporary calf, morocco spine label, front cover detached. Jaggard p. 263.
Item #40252
The second American edition of the first known American publication on Shakespeare (Philadelphia, 1788).
Richardson (1743-1814) was a professor of humanity in the University of Glasgow. First published in Edinburgh in 1774, this work contains essays on Hamlet, Macbeth, on the melancholy Jaques, Imogen, King Richard the Third, King Lear, Timon of Athens, and “On the Faults of Shakespeare.” In this last essay, Richardson faults the admirers of Shakespeare with excessive indulgence of his faults: “I am inclined to believe, and shall now endeavour to demonstrate, that the greatest blemishes in Shakespeare have proceeded from his want of consummate taste …”.
