Beschreibung:

The Woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, Newly Printed, with Divers Addicions, whiche were never in printe before: With the siege and destruccion of the worthy citee of Thebes, compiled by Jhon Lidgate, Monke of Berie. As in the table more plainly dooeth appere Author: Chaucer, Geoffrey Place: London Publisher: Jhon Kyngston for Jhon Wight Date: 1561 Description: [10], ccclxxviij leaves Leaf 104 foliated Ciij; leaf 224 foliated CCxxv; numerous errors in foliation after 2V1. 2⁰: [fleuron]⁴ A-V⁶ 2A-2P⁶ ²Q-T⁶ ²V-X⁸ ²Y-Z⁶ 3A-3T⁶ 3V⁸ This copy lacks 3V8. Printed in black letter with double columns, foliated initials. Woodcut headpiece for the Knight's Tale. (Folio) 31.1x21 cm (12¼x8¼"), recently rebound to 16th century style in blindstamped full sheep over bevelled boards, spine elaborately tooled in blind, new string-raised bands laced onto boards as per original, paper repairs to prelims, repaired with original paper of the same period. Title page with Chaucer's arms (mounted in repair as are a few other leaves), fresh endpapers "aged" to period style. Fifth edition, second variant of the Stowe edition. Heavily annotated with a significant amount of period marginalia in old ink on title page (most legible) and within. The contemporary and near contemporary inscriptions offer fresh insight into the transmission and interpretation of Chaucer in the late Tudor-Stuart period. Late sixteenth and seventeenth century ink inscriptions in multiple hands appear on more than 60 pages, primarily in English secretary hand and in the vernacular. Inscriptions include pen trials and handwriting practice, but also annotations, lines of amateur verse, and one clearly pornographic drawing. The bottom margin of folio LLxiv bears this quill-drawn pornographic diagram depicting male and female sexual organs engaged in intercourse. It occurs on the second page of Chaucer’s poem, “The Assemble of Foules” (The Assembly of Fowles), otherwise known “The Parliament of Fowles.” Topics of love, sex, and desire occur in the poem, which is narrated as a dream vision and staged in the temple of Venus. That the text and image share the same subject matter indicates a strong correlation between the poem and the diagram. The 1561 Stowe edition exists in two (possibly three) variants The 'first variant' has the title within a woodcut compartment (McKerrow & Ferguson 67) and has the Prologue on leaves [fleuron]2-A4 with woodcut illustrations at the beginning of each of its constitutive sections. The 'second issue' has a title page with Chaucer's coat of arms and the date 1560 above the shield and with an unillustrated Prologue on leaves A2-A6. The editor John Stowe, a connoisseur of English poetry and a tailor by trade, heavily based his Chaucer’s Works on earlier printings by editor William Thynne. Thynne’s edition, printed in 1532, 1542, and 1550, was the first serious attempt at a critical edition. This, the rare Fifth edition of the Works, is “doubtless the Chaucer that was studied by Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser and at least leafed through by the young Shakespeare” (The Book of Geoffrey Chaucer 24). In addition to The Caunterburie Tales, this edition includes The Romaunt of the Rose, Troilus and Creseide, Boecius de Consolacione and The Testament of Love. ESTC S107207; STC 507 “Chaucer’s characters live age after age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one of these characters; nor can a child be born who is not one of these characters of Chaucer” (William Blake . Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, “It is difficult to pass over the name of Chaucer without marking the high pitch of perfection to which he brought the art of narration in verse… He was a great narrative artist, incomparably the greatest of an age that loved story-telling and knew nothing of the drama.” By anticipating the inward turn of character generally associated with the Renaissance and the Reformation, Chaucer influenced both the shape and direction of English literat