Brown cloth rebacked spines with gilt title and banding. Marbled boards. Dimensions are for one volume.

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Please view our photographs.This is a very rare edition in a good tight condition which is loving ‘touched up’ to improve its longevity.

Shakespeare and His Friends is a three-volume historical novel by Robert Folkestone Williams published by Henry Colburn in London in 1838. Subtitled Or, “The Golden Age of Merry England, the scarce first edition fictionalizes the life of William Shakespeare and his 16th-century literary circle.

About the Book and Author

• Author: Robert Folkestone Williams (c. 1805–1872), a prolific British writer, journalist, and biographer

• Genre: 19th-century historical fiction set during the Elizabethan era.

• Context: It forms part of a loose trilogy by Williams, preceded by The Youth of Shakespeare (1838) and followed by The Secret Passion (1844).

• Collector Value: Complete three-volume first-edition sets in original or period binding are quite rare on the antiquarian market, generally commanding significant collector interest.

Robert Folkestone Williams (1809 – 1870) was an English novelist, poet, journalist, historian, biographer, magazine editor, and professor. He was born in London in 1809, the son of Edward Williams, a surgeon. Robert originally studied surgery under George James Guthrie, but decided on a literary career. He wrote domestic novels and historical novels on the life of William Shakespeare, the English Civil War, and the early eighteenth century. His novel Sir Roger de Coverley (1846) was published under the pseudonym Frank Ranelagh.

Williams’s fictional works were widely read, with his Shakespeare novels being the best known. He was also well known in literary circles and was a close friend of Frederick Marryat, whose unfinished novel The Little Savage Williams completed, and Theodore Hook, whose unfinished novel Fathers and Sons Williams also completed for publication.

He served as Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Cavalry College, Richmond, and edited The New Monthly Magazine.

In 1839 he married Rosa Lucy du Ponte, the widow of William Francis Player, and they had three children. Williams died in 1870.

Works

Novels

• Mephistopheles in England: or, The Confessions of a Prime Minister (1835)

• Eureka: A Prophecy of the Future (1837)

• Shakspeare and his Friends: or, “The Golden Age” of Merry England (1838)

• The Youth of Shakspeare (1839)

• The Secret Passion (1844)

• Maids of Honour: A Tale of the Court of George I (1845)

• Sir Roger de Coverley: A Tale of the Court of Charles the Second (1846)

• Strawberry Hill: An Historical Novel (1847)

• The Luttrells: or, The Two Marriages (1850)

• Jack Scudamore’s Daughter: A Domestic Story (1865)

Poetry

• Rhymes and Rhapsodies (1833)

History and biography

• Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea, Consort of George I (1845)

• The Court and Times of James the First, 2 vols (1848)

• Domestic Memoirs of the Royal Family and of the Court of England, 3 vols (1860)

• Lives of the English Cardinals, Including Historical Notices of the Papal Court (1868)

Miscellaneous

• An Historical Sketch of the Art of Sculpture in Wood, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (1835)

NOTE: This is an original  book from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG. Note: Jack founded the Michelin Guide ‘Midsummer House’- Cambridge’s paramount restaurant. This dining experience is hidden amongst the grassy pastures and grazing cattle of Midsummer Common and perched on the banks of the River Cam.

In 2008, Jack was one of the co-founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, alongside other members of the Department, and acted as the Foundation’s Chair. The project’s original goals were modest: to build and distribute low-cost computers for prospective applicants to our Computer Science degree. Initially the project was a “success disaster”, as Jack would say, as demand far outstripped the low-scale manufacturing plans. Ultimately the Raspberry Pi became the UK’s most successful computer with more than 60 million sold to date. Jack was drawn to the educational possibilities of the Raspberry Pi, its potential uses in emerging economies and the way it could support self-directed learning.