Cavendish (Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle) Plays, Never Before Printed, first edition, engraved portrait frontispiece by van Schuppen, contemporary autograph corrections and annotations (under the author's instruction), a few small abrasion marks to frontispiece and title, expert repairs to margins of frontispiece and title, a few short tears to lower edges, light water-staining to a few lower corners, some light spotting and browning, new endpapers, eighteenth century speckled calf, gilt crest of "The Society of Writers to the Signet [Library]" to both covers, rebacked, extremities a little rubbed, [Pforzheimer 139], [Wing N867], folio, A.[nne] Maxwell, 1668.*** The first edition of Cavendish's second collection of plays, complete with the rare engraved frontispiece by Pieter van Schuppen after Diepenbeke's painting, which, according to Pforzheimer, is lacking in most copies. Cavendish departed from the printers of her first collection of Playes (1662) to collaborate here with Anne Maxwell - a rare woman publisher. Pforzheimer suggests this change is owing to the lack of success of Cavendish's Playes, but Liza Blake has more recently pointed to Cavendish's frustration with the previous printers' errors. Indeed, her notable scrutiny of her printed texts is evident in this copy which contains dozens of hand-written corrections and annotations, either by the author herself or her secretary - a particular highlight is her correction of "Lordship" to "Ladyship" in The Bridals.