The Workes of Benjamin Jonson.

THE WORKES OF BENJAMIN JONSON. Jonson, Ben; London: Printed by Richard Bishop [and Robert Young], and are to be sold by Andrew Crooke, in St. Paules, Church-yard [1640/1641], 1640.

Folio, 7 x 11 in. Second edition. Second Folio Printing. A-Z6, Aa-Zz6, Aaa-Kkk6, Lll4, A-T6. There is a frontispiece portrait of Jonson copied from Robert Vaughn's plate as well as an engraved title page. This book is bound in worn full contemporary calf. The front board is slightly loose. The top margin of the title page has been trimmed closely. The edges of the first few leaves have a small tear in the margin and there is some staining near the back. Otherwise, this copy has some typical browning but is in good condition overall.

The bookplate of Anthony Lefroy (1800 – 12 January 1890) was an Irish Conservative Party MP in the United Kingdom Parliament. He was born in Dublin, the eldest son of politician and jurist Thomas Langlois Lefroy, was educated at Trinity College and studied law at the King's Inns (1820) and Lincoln's Inn (1822). He was MP for Longford from 1830 to 1832, and again from 1833 to 1837 (he lost the seat at the 1832 general election and was returned after an election petition). He returned to the seat in 1842–1847, when he was declared elected after a petition challenging the result of the 1841 general election. He was appointed High Sheriff of Longford for 1849–50. He then represented his father's old seat, the University constituency of Dublin University, from 1858 to 1870. In 1870 he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds and left Parliament. He died at Carrickglass in 1890. He had married the Hon. Jane King, daughter of Robert King, 1st Viscount Lorton. They had one son, who predeceased him, and two daughters. His estates passed to his brother, Thomas, who himself died the next year.

The second edition of the collected 'Workes' was published three years after Johnson's death. It contains fifteen works by Jonson, two of which were performed at the Globe theater in London by Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare himself performed in Johnson's 'Every Man in His Humor' in 1598 and 'Sejanus' was performed there five years later in 1603.

"Johnson's life was tough and turbulent. After his father's early death, Ben was adopted in infancy by a bricklayer and educated by the great classical scholar and antiquarian William Camden, before necessity drove him to enter the army. In Flanders, where the Dutch with English help were warring against the Spaniards, he fought single-handed with one of the enemies before the massed armies and killed his man.

Returning to England about 1595, he began to work as an actor and playwright but was drawn from one storm center to another. He killed a fellow actor in a duel and escaped the gallows only by pleading 'benefit of the clergy' (i.e., by proving he could read and write, which entitled him to plead before a more lenient court). He was jailed for insulting the Scottish nation at a time when King James was newly arrived from Scotland. He took furious part in an intricate set of literary wars with his fellow playwrights.

Having converted to Catholicism, he was the object of deep suspicion after the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes (1605), when the phobia against his religion reached its height. Yet he rode out all these troubles, growing mellower as he grew older, and in his later years became the unofficial literary dictator of London, the king's pensioned poet, a favorite around the court, and the good friend of men like Shakespeare, Donne, Francis Beaumont, John Selden, Francis Bacon, dukes, diplomats, and distinguished folk generally.

In addition, he engaged the affection of younger men (poets like Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, and Sir John Suckling, speculative thinkers like Lord Falkland and Sir Kenelm Digby), who delighted to christen themselves 'sons of Ben.' Sons of Ben provided the nucleus of the entire 'Cavalier school' of English poets" (Norton Anthology of English Literature). STC 14753; See Pforzheimer 560.