8vo. [4], 288pp. Contemporary gilt-tooled calf, red morocco lettering-piece. Rubbed and marked, with surface wear to joints, joints starting. Armorial bookplate of Edward Larker of Brownsholme to FEP.

The second edition of a critical essay on Shakespeare by Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), English social reformer, literary critic, and patron of the arts. Leader and host of the Blue Stockings Society, her salon regularly entertained some of London's finest literary minds, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Horace Walpole. She used her fortune to patronize many young authors, including Hannah More, Frances Burney and James Woodhouse.

This volume, an essay evaluating and exalting the characters, stories, and verse of Shakespeare, praised the Bard as the greatest poet the world had ever seen. Montagu, writing in response to Voltaire's criticism of Shakespeare, Sur la tragédie’ in Lettres philosphiques (1734), celebrated his natural Englishness, as opposed to the affected and heightened style of French drama. Her essay, first published anonymously, was initially thought to be the work of Joseph Walton, but by 1777 Montagu's name was on the title page.