{"id":11693,"date":"2025-10-27T11:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=11693"},"modified":"2026-03-11T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:34:08","slug":"from-the-archive-cassells-illustrated-works-of-shakespeare-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=11693","title":{"rendered":"From the Archive: Cassell\u2019s Illustrated Works of Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog post was written by Maris Tiller, SCRC Research Services GRA. Maris\u00a0<\/em>a Graduate student pursuing her Master\u2019s in Creative Writing with a concentration in fiction.<\/p>\n

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The plays of William Shakespeare have been collected and read widely since the Bard\u2019s death. The first folio edition of the plays was published a mere seven years after Shakespeare died; already, Shakespeare was considered an important literary figure.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More important than his role as a writer, Shakespeare also became a symbol of culture\u00a0and\u00a0literary knowledge. It became crucial\u00a0\u2013 especially\u00a0in England, the country that produced him\u00a0\u2013 to\u00a0spread\u00a0the\u00a0work of Shakespeare as essential reading.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One publisher\u00a0decided to trick\u00a0out the complete works of Shakespeare \u2013 divided into three volumes separating the comedies, histories, and tragedies \u2013 with illustrations and important authorial context.\u00a0That publishing house was Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

John Cassell was a\u00a0British\u00a0publisher and social reformer who\u00a0believed in the education of the working class. Through his publishing\u00a0house\u00a0Cassell,\u00a0established\u00a0in\u00a01848, he\u00a0printed tracts\u00a0and magazines\u00a0with\u00a0the primary goal of\u00a0educating\u00a0people.\u00a0In addition to this, the publishing house also\u00a0printed quality editions of classic literature, such as these\u00a01900\u00a0editions\u00a0of the plays of William Shakespeare.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the preface, the average reader of 1900 is told what the goal of these editions is:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The assumption here is that the introduction of literature into the home will help to preserve it. There is the hope that\u00a0families will gather around the fire, read from these books, and find some joy in\u00a0what is considered high-minded literature.\u00a0Famous scenes are\u00a0rendered\u00a0in beautiful, realistic illustrations:\u00a0the death of Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia\u2019s madness in\u00a0<\/span>Hamlet<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0Othello\u2019s murder of Desdemona. The crucial visual elements of the plays, in these editions, are well represented\u00a0for someone who may not have the opportunity to see them acted.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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However, while these volumes claim to be a comprehensive collection of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, there is one notable\u00a0work missing here that would be found in any complete Shakespeare volume today:\u00a0<\/span>Titus Andronicus<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0Knowing\u00a0that this would be noticed by anyone familiar with the works of\u00a0Shakespeare,\u00a0editors Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke\u00a0address this exclusion\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0preface of\u00a0the\u00a0tragedies. They say, \u201cWe have\u00a0also omitted Titus Andronicus, a play commonly attributed to Shakespeare; and we have done this not only on account of its grossness, but because it is our conviction that it is not his writing.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not a unique perspective on\u00a0<\/span>Titus<\/span><\/i>, especially for the time.\u00a0If you look at the history of the\u00a0play\u2019s\u00a0authorship, you will see a mad scramble to attribute\u00a0it\u00a0to someone other than Shakespeare.\u00a0<\/span>Titus Andronicus<\/span><\/i>, with its\u00a0hyper-violence, cannibalism, the rape and mutilation of Lavinia, and all manner of other things many find distasteful,\u00a0has long been a subject of controversy among Shakespeare scholars\u00a0and fans.\u00a0While also being very dark and violent, it is also poorly structured, paced, and convoluted. It is easy to dismiss it as a lesser work or one\u00a0not\u00a0of Shakespeare\u2019s pen at all, as we see in this preface.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the theory that Shakespeare did not write\u00a0<\/span>Titus Andronicus\u00a0<\/span><\/i>has, in the years since 1900, been proven to hold little water.\u00a0Still, it\u00a0remains\u00a0a puzzling piece\u00a0to those who view Shakespeare\u00a0as\u00a0an infallible cultural icon. How does one\u00a0consolidate\u00a0that view with a subpar, messy\u00a0play such as\u00a0<\/span>Titus<\/span><\/i>?\u00a0Some\u00a0critics, like Harold Bloom, have tried to recontextualize the play as a parody\u00a0of Christopher Marlowe.\u00a0Others\u00a0have dismissed the play as outright bad, often tacking on comments of disbelief (but not concrete\u00a0claims) that\u00a0the great William\u00a0Shakespeare could even write such a thing.\u00a0There have also been theories that it was one of his co-authored plays, and the credit due to the other writer has been lost to time. This also lends itself to the veneration of\u00a0Shakespeare; if it was co-authored, then maybe Shakespeare\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0write the \u201cbad parts\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At some point, it gets very ridiculous. Why all this fuss over a single play? There are, contained within these three volumes, unaccountable violence and mayhem, sometimes illustrated for the viewer. For example, I find it more than a little silly that\u00a0<\/span>Titus Andronicus\u00a0<\/span><\/i>was\u00a0excluded\u00a0here\u00a0when the beheading of\u00a0Cloten\u00a0in\u00a0<\/span>Cymbeline<\/span><\/i>\u00a0is illustrated on a half-page.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The most interesting thing about these volumes to me is that they simultaneously look to exalt Shakespeare and spread him as a figure of culture, but also do not want to acknowledge the full writer he was. The writer Shakespeare is supplanted by the symbol. Truly, we all know that violence is part of the package of Shakespeare. Bawdiness is part of the package of Shakespeare. But there is great interest in pretending that isn\u2019t true, when really, Shakespeare was a writer like any other writer, and sometimes he wrote a bad play.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is charm in these editions, incomplete as they are. There is something nice in the idea of, \u201c\u2026the father, perhaps, reading to the rest while they pursued their several occupations; the mother and girls at their sewing; the boys at their slate and their sketching\u2026\u201d Even nicer, I think, is the more likely image of real children (supplanting these docile, imaginary ones) play-acting stabbings and sword fights and the deaths of lovers, fascinated by the drama and mayhem of Shakespeare, as is illustrated in these family-friendly books.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Follow SCRC on Social Media and look out for future posts on our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0accounts. To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us at\u00a0speccoll@gmu.edu<\/a>\u00a0or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog post was written by Maris Tiller, SCRC Research Services GRA. Maris\u00a0a Graduate student pursuing her Master\u2019s in Creative Writing with a concentration in fiction.   The plays of William Shakespeare have been collected and read widely since the Bard\u2019s death. The first folio edition of the plays was published a mere seven years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101025,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t