#h.c. selous

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

Working our way through the Shakespeare Collection, our next stop is The Plays of Shakespeare edited and annotated by Charles (1787-1877) and Mary Cowden Clarke (1809-1898) and illustrated by H.C. Selous (1803-1890). The collection was published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., likely in the mid to late 1860s and consists of three volumes each arranging the plays into comedies, histories, and tragedies.  

Scholarly English authors Charles and Mary Cowden Clark refer to the collection as the “People’s Edition” stating their intention for the work to be read within the household and among family circles. Keeping young readers in mind, the plays are annotated for a novice Shakespearean audience and Titus Andronicus is omitted from the collection due to its “grossness”. Additionally, the collection is heavily illustrated by Selous with wood engravings, providing valuable imagery for those unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s plays.  

Volume One contains all of Shakespeare’s comedies and opens with a full-page frontispiece of the author.  

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[storyofmorewhoa]

Isabella and Lucio illustrated by H. C. Selous engraved by Henry Linton

[snacking-on-art-2022]

Christian’s Combat with Apollyon

The Pilgrim’s Progress

H.C. Selous and M. Paolo Priolo, circa 1850.

(The Hebrew term Abaddon, and its Greek equivalent Apollyon appear in the Bible as both a place of destruction and an angel of the abyss. In the Hebrew Bible, Abaddon is used regarding a bottomless pit, often appearing alongside the place Sheol, meaning the resting place of dead peoples.)

[fluttermouse]

H.C. Selous

Joseph Severn

Edmund Dulac

Henry Singleton

Louis Rhead

[mysterious-secret-garden]

H.C. Selous - Romeo and Juliet.

[nemfrog]

Brutus: Speak to me what thou art. (Caesar’s) ghost: Thy evil spirit, Brutus. Act IV, Scene 3. Julius Caesar. The plays of Shakespeare. v.3. 1868. H.C. Selous, illus. 

[indigodreams]

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, , H.C. Selous, Oberon, Puck, Titania Michael Goodman

[0pheli0]

Hamlet and Ophelia

Painted by J D Watson, engraved by S Smith

Hamlet (Act III, Scene 1)Hamlet: "I loved you not." Ophelia:" I was the more deceived."

Cowden-Clarke, Charles and Mary, eds. The Plays of William Shakespeare. The Tragedies.

Illustrator: H.C. Selous. London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin and Co.

c. 1830.

[artofquotation]

“Have more than you show. Speak less than you know.” "Have more than you show. Speak less than you know." Fool to Lear William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

Volume Three of The Plays of Shakespeare published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. in the mid to late 1860s finishes off the set with a collection of Shakespeare’s tragedies and The Story of Shakespeare’s Life written by editors Charles (1787-1877) and Mary Cowden Clark (1809-1898). Similarly to Cowden Clark’s annotations, The Story of Shakespeare’s Life is written for an audience new to Shakespeare and is a thorough account of his life, heralding him as a “shining example to the whole human brotherhood”.  

Englishman Henry Courtney (H.C.) Selous (1803-1890) illustrated all three volumes with his distinctive attention to minute detail and dense landscapes. Following his father’s portrait and miniature painting career, Selous attended the Royal Academy in 1818 where he exhibited his first work Portrait of a Favourite Cat. Twenty-two years later he would switch gears into historical painting and never look back. His illustrations for The Plays of Shakespeare add an emotive visual layer to the plays, benefiting young and novice readers who may not have experienced Shakespeare in a theatre.  

The Plays of Shakespeare are a collected edition of the serialization of plays originally published in one of Cassell, Petter, & Galpin’s weekly papers over the course of many years. Met with great success, some seventeen editions have been published. Our early copy is half-bound in red leather with Shakespeare’s portrait embossed in gold on the cover. 

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[vladtheunfollower]

On the bat’s back do I fly..Ariel, The Tempest, Act 5Sc 1 H.C. Selous, illustration for an edition of William Shakespeare's The Tempest (c. 1890)

[gprovin]

“Ariel: on the bat’s back I do fly.” The tempest. H.C. selous, ilus. The plays of William Shakespeare.” (1870)

[nymphsandspace]

“ariel: on the bat’s back I do fly.” the tempest. H.C. selous, illus. the plays of william shakespeare.” (1870)

[enchantedbook]

"Ariel  : on the bat’s back I do fly after Summer, merrily" from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" artist : H.C. Selous

[hellonheelz93]

“Ariel On the bat’s back I do fly.” The Tempest. H.C. Selous, illus. The plays of William Shakespeare. 1870.