The Project Gutenberg EBook of Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734)
by Lewis Theobald

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Title: Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734)

Author: Lewis Theobald

Commentator: Hugh G. Dick

Release Date: July 22, 2005 [EBook #16346]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note:
This e-text contains a few brief passages of Greek. They have been
transliterated and placed between +marks+.]

The Augustan Reprint Society

LEWIS THEOBALD
_Preface to The Works of Shakespeare_
(1734)

With an Introduction by
Hugh G. Dick

Publication Number 20
(Extra Series, No. 2)

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1949

* * * * *

_GENERAL EDITORS_

H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITORS_

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

Lewis Theobald's edition of Shakespeare (1734) is one cornerstone
of modern Shakespearian scholarship and hence of English literary
scholarship in general. It is the first edition of an English writer in
which a man with a professional breadth and concentration of readin