Songs of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare|Harriette Charlotte Hoskyns Abrahall|Day & Son, Ltd., London

1865 · Illustrations: color lithographs (chromolithographs) with gold · Drawings and Prints

One page of this lovely illustrated book is devoted to a song from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (act 2, scene 2) crooned by Titania’s fairy attendants to lull their queen to sleep. Hedgehogs, spotted snakes, newts, and spiders—all of which the text instructs to keep their distance—appear in the elaborate border, where color lithography reproduces the brilliant effects of manuscript illumination. Married to an Anglican minister, Abrahall designed this book while moving between postings in Oxfordshire and Wales.

Artist

William Shakespeare|Harriette Charlotte Hoskyns Abrahall|Day & Son, Ltd., London

Date

1865

Medium

Illustrations: color lithographs (chromolithographs) with gold

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1966