![MIDDLETON, Thomas (ca 1570-1627). A Mad World My Masters: A comedy as it hath bin often acted at the private house in Salisbury Court .... London: [John Okes] for J[ohn] S[pencer], and are to be sold by James Becket, 1640.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/NYR/2001_NYR_09878_0282_000(033324).jpg?w=1)
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MIDDLETON, Thomas (ca 1570-1627). A Mad World My Masters: A comedy as it hath bin often acted at the private house in Salisbury Court .... London: [John Okes] for J[ohn] S[pencer], and are to be sold by James Becket, 1640.
4o (185 x 135 mm). Title with double rule and two rows of printer's flowers. (C2 with upper corner renewed with several letters in facsimile, light browning, lacking initial blank.) Late 19th-century green half morocco and marbled boards, edges stained red. Provenance: occasional underlining and scoring of passages in an early hand -- John Verlham (bookplate) -- Julian Marshall (wood-engraved bookplate) -- purchased from Seven Gables Bookshop, New York, 1 March 1971.
A WIDE-MARGINED COPY of the second edition, the first having appeared in 1608, while the play itself was written in about 1605 for the Children of Paul's, one of the children's companies made up chiefly or entirely of boys and acting in relatively small indoor theatres. The present edition is preceded by a 3-page address from "The Printer and Stationer to the Gentle Reader," affirming that the author's "knowne Abilities will survive to all Posterities, though hee be long since dead," and recommending the reading of a comedy that has been so much enjoyed in performance, despite its now unfashionable use of rhyming metre. Ashley III, p. 143; Greg 276(b); Pforzheimer 696; STC 17889. RARE.
4o (185 x 135 mm). Title with double rule and two rows of printer's flowers. (C2 with upper corner renewed with several letters in facsimile, light browning, lacking initial blank.) Late 19th-century green half morocco and marbled boards, edges stained red. Provenance: occasional underlining and scoring of passages in an early hand -- John Verlham (bookplate) -- Julian Marshall (wood-engraved bookplate) -- purchased from Seven Gables Bookshop, New York, 1 March 1971.
A WIDE-MARGINED COPY of the second edition, the first having appeared in 1608, while the play itself was written in about 1605 for the Children of Paul's, one of the children's companies made up chiefly or entirely of boys and acting in relatively small indoor theatres. The present edition is preceded by a 3-page address from "The Printer and Stationer to the Gentle Reader," affirming that the author's "knowne Abilities will survive to all Posterities, though hee be long since dead," and recommending the reading of a comedy that has been so much enjoyed in performance, despite its now unfashionable use of rhyming metre. Ashley III, p. 143; Greg 276(b); Pforzheimer 696; STC 17889. RARE.