Mr. William Shakespeare His Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies . . . [ed. by Edward Capell] by Shakespeare, William - [1768]

FIRST EDITION of Shakespeare's plays edited by Edward Capell, who assembled an enormous collection of Shakespeare quartos and folios in his attempt to establish the best text for the plays. "Scientific criticism of the text [of Shakespeare] begins with Edward Capell. He was the first to base his text actually on the quartos and folios; and later editors, even when they go back to original authorities, owe an incalculable debt to his painstaking and remarkably accurate collation of the old copies. . . . He is said to have transcribed the whole of Shakespeare ten times" (Cambridge History of English Literature).