Drama collection

Rare Shakespearian material, and an exceptionally good range of editions of the key Restoration Drama writers.

Includes a rare major set of late 17th-century editions of Shakespeare, and numerous works by Dryden, Cibber, Johnson, Congreve, etc. The majority of works represent Restoration drama, while the remainder date from the 18th-19th centuries. It is one of the best such collections in the UK and beyond for its coverage.

Many illustrated editions of Shakespeare are held, including Rowe, Pope and Sewell, Gilbert, Boydell, and Hanmer, as well as a densely extra-illustrated edition of Charles Knight's Pictorial Shakespeare (1867)

There is a good deal of marginalia throughout volumes in the collection, which has been surveyed and analysed by Dr Melanie Bigold in ''The theatre of the book'': marginalia and "mise en page" in the Cardiff Rare Books Restoration Drama Collection. Cardiff: Centre for Editorial & Intertextual Research, Cardiff University, 2013.

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