I sitte at another book tyl fully daswed ys myn look
This morning I got a phone call from my aunt, who offered to take me to a great big used book sale that's going on in West County. Of course, I couldn't resist this opportunity, so I went, and have now acquired $70 worth of used books, which is, all things considered, a truly impressive stack of them, mostly old anthologies (I collect them), drama collections (I now have more copies of Ralph Roister Doister than any sane human being needs), and assorted bits of Shakespeareana (a couple of old biographies, an illustrated complete-works with rather ugly pictures). So, in general, a fabulous haul. The best find was the hardcover First Folio facsimile I picked up for eight dollars. I mean, I have a Folio facsimile, but when you see one lying around at a used booksale are you just going to LEAVE IT THERE? Hell no!
I also found A.L. Rowse's biography of Shakespeare in which he claims to have solved the puzzle of the Sonnets, I think by saying that Aemilia Lanyer was the Dark Lady (which is silly). Rowse is funny. I read the chapter on the histories first, because I always do, and it's extremely amusing because a lot of it is devoted to squeeful Bolingbroke-fanboying. And the odd comment on how people who don't like Henry V are joyless bolshy idiots, or something. Oh, and as a curiosity I bought a silly edition of the histories from a series called "Shakespeare Arranged for Modern Reading," which is basically a good-bits edition of Shakespeare, for the editors' values of "good bits." This is, of course, profoundly stupid. In the introduction, they come right out and say, basically, "Shakespeare is full of great stuff, but there's a lot in the plays that's really boring. Read this edition and you can skip all that and not bother with the full text." While I of course find this viewpoint abhorrent, you can't help but smile a bit at their forthrightness.
At any rate, I have spent all my time since I got home cataloguing everything I bought on LibraryThing. Which is ridiculously addictive, perhaps because it's nice to have a place to go on the internet where you can point and say to other people that "I have ALL THOSE BOOKS."
I have also noted, incidentally, that the book sale had enough cast-off copies of Romeo and Juliet to stock 37 high schools and a college intro-Shakespeare class. Which is probably where it got them from in the first place. There were also many unloved copies of 1 and occasionally 2 Henry IV for presumably the same reason. I rescued a couple of these on the grounds that one cannot have too many copies of the Henry IVs. Or at least, I can't. Though clearly, I did not show as much love to Henry IV as A.L. Rowse does. ;)
I also found A.L. Rowse's biography of Shakespeare in which he claims to have solved the puzzle of the Sonnets, I think by saying that Aemilia Lanyer was the Dark Lady (which is silly). Rowse is funny. I read the chapter on the histories first, because I always do, and it's extremely amusing because a lot of it is devoted to squeeful Bolingbroke-fanboying. And the odd comment on how people who don't like Henry V are joyless bolshy idiots, or something. Oh, and as a curiosity I bought a silly edition of the histories from a series called "Shakespeare Arranged for Modern Reading," which is basically a good-bits edition of Shakespeare, for the editors' values of "good bits." This is, of course, profoundly stupid. In the introduction, they come right out and say, basically, "Shakespeare is full of great stuff, but there's a lot in the plays that's really boring. Read this edition and you can skip all that and not bother with the full text." While I of course find this viewpoint abhorrent, you can't help but smile a bit at their forthrightness.
At any rate, I have spent all my time since I got home cataloguing everything I bought on LibraryThing. Which is ridiculously addictive, perhaps because it's nice to have a place to go on the internet where you can point and say to other people that "I have ALL THOSE BOOKS."
I have also noted, incidentally, that the book sale had enough cast-off copies of Romeo and Juliet to stock 37 high schools and a college intro-Shakespeare class. Which is probably where it got them from in the first place. There were also many unloved copies of 1 and occasionally 2 Henry IV for presumably the same reason. I rescued a couple of these on the grounds that one cannot have too many copies of the Henry IVs. Or at least, I can't. Though clearly, I did not show as much love to Henry IV as A.L. Rowse does. ;)