4 volumes, 8vo. 27 engraved and aquatint folding plates (24 hand-colored). Late 19th-century red morocco, sides with central crowned Eagle surrounded by gilt filet border with Napoleonic N cornerpieces, spines in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands, gilt-lettered in two, eagle, bee and Napoleonic N tools gilt in the rest, turn-ins gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut, stamp-signed by W.Root and Son; red cloth jackets gilt (some light rubbing to extremities). 

FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM, originally published in parts. William Henry Ireland gained infamy in 1794 when he claimed to have discovered a cache of old documents supposedly from William Shakespeare, among them letters to Queen Elizabeth I and Anne Hathaway and original manuscripts of Hamlet and King Lear. It was later found that Ireland had forged these works and, after difficulty finding work in England, he moved to France where he attempTed to reinvent himself as a historian. Tooley 278.