Chronicle.- Hall (Edward) The Union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, , Rychard Grafton, 1550

£1,000 · At auction with Forum Auctions

Chronicle.- Hall (Edward) The Union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, lacking title and pre-lims but text complete, black letter, large woodcut armorial initials, smaller woodcut historiated and decorative initials, mild to moderate worming to top of pages particularly from Qi onwards, neat repair to top of front endpaper, previous owners inscriptions in pencil, 1905 auction listing tipped in at front, some marginal repairs, some spotting and mostly light staining, lightly browned, Richard, rebacked in gilt decorated calf with red Morocco label, raised bands, scuffing and gouging to leather, corners bumped, [STC 12723], small folio, Richard Grafton, 1550. ***"To find the book anything like perfect is a matter of great difficulty" Hall's Chronicle is an important source for Shakespeare's History Plays . He was a staunch supporter of Henry VIII, and so the work was banned during the reign of Catholic Mary I, which no doubt helps to account for the scarcity of early editions. As ESTC ruefully observes, 'this is an exceptionally difficult work to grasp'. Grafton carried out a complicated sequence of re-issues and reprints, with tables added after the first sections of the text had been printed, and copies vary considerably in their components. Provenance: Bookplate of Henry Fowler Broadwood.

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