The Letterpress Shakespeare.

London: The Folio Society; Oxford University Press, 2007. LIMITED EDITIONS, EACH NO. 840 OF 3750, 1980 OR 1000 COPIES, 78 vols, folio and 8vo, comprising 39 folio volumes printed on Zerkall mould-made paper and bound in original half blue, green red or turquoise Nigerian goatskin, marbled boards, spines lettered direct in gilt, top edges gilt, others untrimmed, and 39 companion 8vo volumes in matching-colour buckram, printed paper labels to front boards, spines lettered direct in gilt; one book of each format housed together in 39 matching-colour solander boxes with Nigerian goatskin labels. A fine set. A complete set of a major undertaking: the complete works of Shakespeare in elegant large-format letterpress, set in 16pt Monotype Baskerville with Caslon Display by Gloucester Typesetting Services, with printing requiring the services of three different firms across England and Germany, and the binding in quarter goatskin completed by Lachenmaier in Reutlinge. Each play volume is numbered and presented with a companion volume of the sheets of the Oxford University Press text and commentary of the corresponding work, specially-bound for this edition. The volumes are colour-coded, with the comedies being in green, the histories in blue and the tragedies in red, plus the volume of poetry in turquoise. The project began ambitiously, with the first 12 volumes in a limitation of 3,750 numbered copies (plus 25 lettered); it was then scaled down and the remainder were produced in runs of only 1,000 numbered copies, apart from the poems, for which 1,980 numbered copies (and 20 lettered) were produced. Complete, continuously numbered sets are already difficult to acquire.