THE POETICAL WORKS by SHAKESPEARE,WILLIAM - 1806

London: Printed for Thomas Wilson, 1806. n. Hardcover. With Glimmering Jewels, as well as Beams of Sunlight and Apollonian Inspiration. 235 x 168 mm (9 1/4 x 6 5/8"). 3 p.l. (without half title), 233 pp., [15] leaves (glossary). LUXURIANT BROWN MOROCCO, ELABORATELY GILT, INLAID, AND BEJEWELLED, BY SANGORSKI & SUTCLIFFE (stamp-signed with their entwined "S&S" on rear doublure; front doublure stamped "Bound for Chas. J. Sayer Ltd., London"), covers with a great variety of swirling gilt, strapwork, and jewels (24 on the front cover, 20 on the rear) as well as mother-of-pearl and brushed and stippled gold, both boards with central pictorial panel featuring a rising sun and bird in flight (on the front) and a lyre (on the rear), spine similarly beautiful with much gold in compartments between raised bands, DOUBLURES AND FREE ENDLEAVES OF SKY BLUE MOROCCO, THE FRONT DOUBLURE WITH A COSWAY-STYLE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE ON IVORY in a sunken panel containing another eight small jewels, the endleaves with long quotations in large gilt letters, gilt edges. In a (slightly worn) brown straight-grain morocco clamshell box (with its front joint neatly replaced). Ratcliffe "Jewelled Bindings" MWE 46. Brass flaking from portrait frame in a couple of spots, overall faint browning to leaves and isolated minor freckled foxing, but still AN EXTREMELY FINE COPY, clean and fresh internally, and THE GLORIOUS BINDING WITH NO SIGNS OF WEAR. This is an obscure edition of Shakespeare's famous poems in tall octavo format, offered here in a memorable binding of notable elegance, controlled exuberance, and outstanding condition. There is an especially pleasing harmony between the cover designs--that on the front with gilt beams radiating up from a rising sun, that on the rear with golden rays of inspiration showering down from Apollo's lyre. The moonstones and mother-of-pearl inlays lend a lovely iridescence that complements the shimmer of the lavish gilt tooling. This 1806 edition of Shakespeare's "Poetical Works" contains "Venus and Adonis," "The Rape of Lucrece," the complete "Sonnets," "The Passionate Pilgrim," "The Lover's Complaint," and a glossary of the many neologisms coined by Shakespeare. While no editor's name is given here, and the book was issued by someone not well known, this printing nevertheless has an important literary association: John Keats penned his last sonnet, "Bright Star," on the verso of the section title for "The Lover's Complaint" in a copy of this edition given to him by John Hamilton Reynolds.