Shakespeare Weekend

Volume Two of The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere edited and published by Charles Knight (1797-1873) contains the remaining six comedies All’s Well That Ends Well, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night; or What You Will, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, A Winter’s Tale, and Tempest. Knight includes introductory notices prior to the start of each play throughout the collection to determine “the state of the text.” The notices provide brief overviews of the play draped with an editorial point of view, deliver a critical analysis of the “supposed source of the plot,“ and address character costumes.  

The notices are as heavily illustrated as the plays, and unique to Volume Two is an advertisement defending the editorial choices of how and which illustrations are chosen for inclusion. Knight informs readers that there are no editions of Shakespeare “in which the aid of Art has been called in to give a distinctness to the conceptions of the reader by representing the realities upon which the imagination of the poet must have rested.” He further explains that his pictorial edition will focus on representing the scores of rich scenes and characters without unnecessary embellishments. With one hundred and sixty illustrations in Volume Two alone, it is safe to say his intentions were well met.  

The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere was originally issued out of London in fifty-six monthly parts before being bound in an eight-volume set in 1839. 

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-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern