BEAUMONT, Francis & John Fletcher. Comedies and Tragedies. Written by Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher, Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by the Authors Original Copies. (FIRST COLLECTED EDITION - 1647)

AUTHOR: BEAUMONT, Francis & John Fletcher

TITLE: Comedies and Tragedies. Written by Francis Beaumont And John Fletcher, Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by the Authors Original Copies. - BOUND WITH - The Wild-Goose Chase A Comedie.

PUBLISHER: London: for Humphrey Robinson & Humphrey Moseley, 1647 / 1652.

DESCRIPTION: FIRST COLLECTED EDITION AND FIRST EDITION. 1 vol., folio, 12-5/8" x 9", with the engraved frontis portrait plate, expert archival repairs to verso, possibly supplied from another copy, neat paper repairs to lower edge or outer corner of 6 leaves affecting the text of only 4 words on one page, pagination irregular but complete, bound in at the end is the missing play "The Wild-Goose Chase" (second state with title-page corrected), a much better copy than it may sound.

REFERENCE: Grolier 100; Pforzheimer 53; Wing B-1581 & B-1616.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The third and last of the three great folio collection of Elizabethan drama after Jonson's (1616) and Shakespeare's (1623). This first collected works edition includes a number of plays previously unpublished.

"The Wild-Goose Chase" was acted at court in 1621, but not printed until 1652. In 1647 when the folio of Beaumont's and Fletcher's works was published, this play was omitted, as it had long been lost and was supposed to be irrecoverable.