William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies

William Shakespeare
The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke
Weimar: The Cranach Press, 1930

Over the course of my career I have written books about many kinds of love, yet was unprepared for and surprised by a new love, one to which I thought I was actually pretty immune: the love of a rare book. Illustrated with sublime and witty woodcuts by Edward Gordon Craig, the Cranach Hamlet is enrapturing. Its appeal is not only in the woodcuts, but in the book itself— with its red morocco cover and its remarkable rhythms of play text, image, and marginal source texts. The complete consort dancing together seems to me so compellingly beautiful. I can’t get over it.

14.5 L x 10 W x 1.5 Th (in)
Typ 920.30.7850. From the Collection of Philip Hofer, 1942.