"This reproduction is printed letter for letter, line for line, and page for page as near the original as modern type will permit. The portrait has been specially engraved on steel in facsimile of the original in the British museum. The initial letters, head-pieces and cuts on the titles have also been reproduced ... for this edition."--Note, 2d prelim. leaf.
With facsimile reproduction of original t.p.: Poems: written by Wil. Shakespare. Gent. [Printer's mark] Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by Iohn Benson, dwelling in St. Dunstans Church-yard. 1640.
"Two hundred and fifty copies are printed on small paper, of which this is no. 20."
Contains most of the sonnets (146) grouped under various titles, interspersed with the poems of the Passionate pilgrim, the Lover's complaint, the Phoenix and the Turtle, and a number of translations from Ovid, falsely ascribed to Shakespeare.
Poems on Shakespare by L. Digges, J. Warren, Milton W. Basse, and others precede and follow. Appended is "An addition of some excellent poems ... by other gentlemen" [Ben Jonson and others]: [21] p.