Description

Shakespeare's library; a collection of the plays, romances, novels, poems, and histories employed by Shakespeare in the composition of his works.

With introd. and notes. The text now first formed from a new collation of the original copies (1875)
2nd Edition, 6 volumes

Contents
PART I. VOL. 2.

Shakespeare's plays in this volume:
AS YOU LIKE IT.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
MACBETH.
CYMBELINE.
HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK.
OTHELLO.
KING LEAR.

SYNTHETICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(List of works of literature associated with each play):

AS YOU LIKE IT:
Rosalynde : Euphues Golden Legacie, by Thomas Lodge, 1592.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:
[It seems eminently probable that Shakespeare's play was indebted in some degree to an earlier one on the same subject (no longer known) by Dekker and
Chettle, but the foundation-story was undoubtedly Chaucer's ; nor is it, on the whole, very likely that Shakespeare resorted either to Caxton's Recueil or to Lydgate. See further what is said in the Introduction.]

MACBETH:
The History of Makbeth, from Holinshed.

CYMBELINE:
1. Abstract of Boccaccio's tale of Bernabo da Genova, with an account of an early French miracle-play, and two French romances, containing incidents similar to those in the English drama.
2. The Account of Kymbeline, from Holinshed.
3. The Story of the Fishwife of Standon-the-Green, from Westward for Smelts, 1620.

HAMLET PRINCE OF DENMARK:
The Historie of Hamblet, 1608.

OTHELLO:
The Story of a Moorish Captain, from the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio, parte prima, decaterza, Nov. 7.

KING LEAR:
1. The History of Lear, from Holinshed.
2. The same, from the English Gesta Romanorum, edit. Madden, pp. 450-3.
3. The History of Leir and his Three Daughters, 1605, a play. (Part //.)
4. Queen Cordela, an historical poem, by John Higins, from the Mirror for Magistrates.
5. The Story of the Paphalgonian Unkind King, from Sydney's Arcadia.
6. The Ballad of Lear and his Three Daughters.


THE following work supplies an important deficiency in our literature as regards Shakespeare : it brings into one view all that has been recovered of the
sources he employed, in various degrees, in the composition of such of his dramas as are not derived from Grecian, Roman, or English History, or were not formed upon some earlier play. The romances, novels, and poems to which he resorted are scattered over many volumes, some of them of the rarest occurrence, existing only in our public libraries : these are included in the ensuing pages. We have ventured to call the work "Shakespeare's Library," since our great dramatist, in all probability, must have possessed
the books to which he was indebted, and some of which he applied so directly and minutely to his own purposes.