Excerpt from Foreword to the Catalogue of the Shakespeare Library No attempt has been made to include early editions of Shakespeare's works (apart from the First Complete and First Illustrated Edition of this having been outside the design of its founder; but no expense was spared to obtain original editions of Elizabethan and Jacobean litera ture (both English and Foreign), many of them being of extreme rarity, Which would assist the Student and add to his knowledge and appreciation of the national Poet. Roughly speaking, the Library can be divided into seven sections (see port). With but twenty or thirty exceptions, all the books in this Library were printed before the year 1700, and mere reprints have been invariably rejected. The entire Collection comprises no less than 990 books volumes), every book being quite perfect and in excellent library condition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.