As you might expect, I have a fairly-large collection of Shakespeare books. I have large scholarly tomes and children's retellings, modern Shakespearean fiction and Shakespeare biographies, critical editions of the plays and books on Shakespeare films.
But I don't have much that would count as rare or valuable—except one book: The first edition of the Macbeth illustrated by Salvador Dali. It's not in great condition, and it doesn't have the slipcase that originally accompanied it, but I picked it up at a bargain rate, and perhaps it will appreciate in value.
If it doesn't, that's fine—that's not the point. The point is that I will grow in my appreciation of it.
I don't dip into it too often, but my eye fell on it (insert King Lear joke here) as I was glancing over my shelves, and I decided to glance through it and give it a write-up here.
The illustrations seem to me to be typical of Dali—they're odd and unexpected . . . and they seem to pop right off the page into the viewer's face. Here, for example, is the illustration of the line about Duncan's horses eating each other:
And here's an illustration that goes with Macbeth's visit to the Weïrd Sisters in Act IV:
The illustrations are wild, interesting, and disturbing. They do seem to fit the play pretty well.
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