SHAKESPEARE. AYSCOUGH (Rev. Samuel) — Shakspeare’s Dramatic Works; with Explanatory Notes. A New Edition. To which now added, a Copious Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words.

London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1790. New edition, 3 vols., royal 8vo (235 x 140 mm), [28], 541; [3], 544-1079, [1]; [3], 1084-1752, [8]pp., with the list of subscribers and final 4 pages of adverts, portrait engraved by Sherwin from the original folio edition (offset), nineteenth-century half calf, rebacked, rather rubbed. Samuel Ayscough (1745–1804) was a librarian and indexer, up until this index volume was published there was no concordance to Shakespeare’s plays. “This was a speculation on the part of the publisher, John Stockdale, who paid 200 guineas for the index, which was designed to accompany his two-volume edition of the Dramatic Works. Here the words are arranged alphabetically with the lines in which they occur, then the name of the play, and in five separate columns the act, scene, page, column and line.”—Wikipedia. Provenance: Ink ownership signature to front endpaper ‘William Johnston, July 5th 1861’; later armorial bookplate of Colonel William Johnson, C.B. M.D. Army Med. Staff.