EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1366, 17 February 1912, Page 16

EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE.

-5 - The publication of a Shakespeare in paper covers at tho price of a shilling (says an English' writer) carries one's memory back to the times when Dicks' paper editions of tho English poots lingered on in tho shop windows of country towns. Shakespeare is perhaps _ not the writer one would caro.to have in paper cc'vers, and most readers will prefer to pay tho extra fourpence ■ and get him in boards, but books so bound, or unbound, havo a charm of their own. They are of easier accost than their brethren in boards, thoy do not resent uncivil treatment, they become intimato sooner, and earlier answer "budget" to your every "mum," and become the book of your heart. "Unfortunately they are short lived, anil anyone who has watched his shelves of Continental literature knows the stages through which they pass to ■complctsi dissolution. At first they stand with a soldierly erectness, legibly titled, in a serried rank. The blanks left by periodical removals, however, do their work—tho backs split, the sides bulge out, and tho volumes trust to mutual support in a way that reminds one of a company of jolly good fellows who won't go home till morning. Tho caso is the mora Jesthat both tho tiro available remedies are disagreeable. One. is tho supersession of tho old copy by a new one. That involves, however, the transferring of the pencil marks, while tho giving tho old friend to tho flames asks tho heart of a Brutus. .The .other is the calling in of tho binder. But the book that comes back from tho binder is the veriest changeling. It is not the companion who heard the chimes at midnight with us, but a stiff person with formal manners, and we have to make acquaintance' with him anew.

Shakespparo is one of those writers of whom it may be.said that no existing edition satisfies all an ordinary reader's wants. Even one who may have no pretensions to Shakespearean scholarship, but who prizes good literature and has some regard to comfortable conditions of reading will hardly bo content to havo him in fewer than three forms. First thero will be an edition in a single volumo for purposes of reference. Tho "Globe" edition sorves this purpose admirably. It is a sound text, and there is so much upon the page that a quotation may bo run to earth with it minimum of turning over of pages. The double-columned page, however, is not inviting for fireside rending, and the close-set lines nail narrow margins give too little scope for tho piay of the pencil. Thero is required; accordingly, an edition more pleasing to the eye and having as much npon tho page as "a more generona typo will allow, and that is answered by the three-volnmo form, of histories, tragedies, and comedies. linally, no one will bo quite content who,does not have, at any rate, his favourite plays' in some such pocket form as the admirable "Toraple edition. Will developments in printing and improvements in book material ever make possible the fulfilment of all those conditions in one volume? Thoro is no limiting tho possibilities of the futnre, and certainly if that project of substituting a nickel sheet for a paper page with which Mr. Edison is rejoicing tho imaginations of his fel-low-countrymen Bucceeds the' thing is done. _ The sheet is ono two-hundredth tho thickness of ordinary paper, so that a book two inches thick would contain 40,000 pages. In that case wo should not only very easily havo a complete largetype pocket Shakespeare, but should probably bo .able to go abroad with all the volumes of the "Encyclopaedia Britonnica" bestowed about various parts of our person, and that without sign of bulging pockets.