COMEDIES HISTORIES TRAGEDIES AND POEMS THE TEXT NEWLY EDITED WITH GLOSSARIAL HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1883 75 Copyright, 1883, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. To HENRY O. HOUGHTON, ESQ., M.A. OF RIVERSIDE. MY DEAR MR. HOUGHTON: Shakespeare's Sonnets were dedicated by their publisher to a sort of editor of them, because he was their "onlie begetter." The editor of this edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works dedicates it to the publisher for much the same reason. For if you are not its only begetter, it was at least undertaken and has been completed to carry out a plan in the design of which you had a considerable share. For that reason, too, your colaborer has placed upon its title-page the name of the great Press established by you and directed in a spirit which seems to have been caught from those eminent printers and scholars, the Aldi. There is, moreover, a certain appropriateness in the name borne by this edition. It seems fit and of good omen that what was played to the general public at the Bankside in Old England should be printed for the general public at Riverside in the New. There is yet one more reason why your name should appear upon this page: it is to acknowledge here my long-felt personal interest in your labors and the interest which you have shown in those of Yours most truly, R. G. W. |