Shakespeare, William. The tragic story of Hamlet Princes of Daenemark in German. Newly translated and furnished by Gerhart Hauptmann. 202 pp., 1 Bl. Red and black printed text with commentary (Hamlet sources). With 74 original woodcuts by Edward Gordon Craig. 35.5 x 24 cm. Red OMaroquin (kaum berieben) on 5 decorative frets with gold-embossed back-titles and gold-embroidered fillets on back and lids, gold-deborated standing edges fillets, double inner edges fillet, head gold-cut, cover signed "O. Dorfner-Weimar", in OPappschuber. Weimar, Cranach-Presse, 1927-1929. Brinks 76. Müller-Krumbach 48. Rodenberg 493. Schauer I, 91f. and II, 74. Eyssen 94ff. – One of 230 Roman numbered copies on Maillol-Kessler bags of the cranach press's most sophisticated typographic printing (total edition: 255). The always changing sentence image shows the references to "Hamlet" in the comment set. The text and partly also the woodcuts are printed alternately in black and grey, which achieves an increase in the image effect. The design of the special type for this work was designed by Edward Johnston. The title was cut in wood by Eric Gill. Sentence management and print arrangement by Harry Graf Kessler. "... an absolute peak of the goal of the German private presses programmed on artistic individuality" (Eyssen). "In 1905 Kessler exhibited works by Gordon Craig at the Museum für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in Weimar, which he later commissioned in 1929 with the illustration of the second famous book of the Cranach press, the 'Hamlet'. The publication proposed to the Insel-Verlag about a Hamlet production Craigs is probably a preliminary form of the later press print, which also goes back to figurines and stage designs of the artist who is strongly engaged in stage art" (Müller-Krumbach p. 29). – Only quite isolated (preferably towards the end) minimal brown spots, otherwise a blameless specimen on the magnificent Uncircumcised busts and in the hand cover by Otto Dorfner (1885-1955) which became a classic.