The largest edition of Shakespeare to date, v1803 occupied the first three volumes with prefatory materials before getting to the plays in volume 4. The meticulous fulsomeness was counterbalanced by a desire to present more Shakespeare and less scaffolding. This is largely Steevens' ed., which excludes the poetry, especially the Sonnets, which he thought disgusting.
v1803v1 v1803v2 v1803v3 v1803v4 (Tmp TGV MND) v1803v5 (MWW TN) v1803v6 (Ado MM) v1803v7 (LLL MV) v1803v8 (AYL AWW)
v1803v9 (Shr WT) v1803v10 (Mac Jn) v1803v11 (R2 1H4) v1803v12 (2H4 H5) v1803v13 (1H6 2H6) v1803v14 (3H6 R3) v1803v15 (H8 Tro) v1803v16 (Cor JC)
v1803v17 (Ant. Lr) v1803v18 (Ham Cym) v1803v19 (Tim Oth) v1803v20 (Rom Err) v1803v21 (Tit Per)
James Boswell the Younger conceived of the edition as a way to validate Malone and defend him from what he considered to be Steevens's unjust criticism of his hero: "My principle object is to defend my late friend's integrity (1: xxxv). Therefore, besides caning Steevens for his more acerbic remarks toward him, he strove to reproduce the plays in the chronological order that Malone theorized, with the exception of the history plays. v1821 is the first ed. not to begin with The Tempest. And, unlike the Steevens-oriented v1803 and v1813, v1821 contains the poetry, including the Sonnets, which had been part of Malone's ed. of 1790.
1821v1 1821v2 1821v3 1821v4 (TGV Err LLL) 1821v5 (MV MND Shr) 1821v6 (Rom AYL) 1821v7 (Ado Ham) 1821v8 (MWW Tro) 1821v9 (MM Oth) 1821v10 (Lr AWW) 1821v11 (TN Mac) 1821v12 (JC Ant) 1821v13 (Cym Tim) 1821v14 (Cor WT) 1821v15 (Tmp Jn) 1821v16 (R2 1H4) 1821v17 (2H4 H5) 1821v18 (123H6) 1821v19 (R3 H8) 1821v20 (Ven Luc Son LC PP 1821v21 (Per Tit)
Josiah Boydell conceived an edition of Shakespeare based on those of Steevens and Reed, illustrated by prints based on episodes in the plays in order to encourage historical painting in England. A gallery was established as well, and the edition was produced between 1791-1805. Arguably, this initiated the movement away from the encyclopedic variorum text in favor of an illustrated, popular Shakespeare, which accorded well with nineteenth-century taste.
William D. Moffat on Boydell in Shakesperiana (1887)
Chalmers presented the v1803 virtually entire, sans commentary, which some saw as a welcome development. He also included Henry Fuseli's engravings. He edited a remarkable number of texts, including full eds. of The Tatler and Spectator, and Gibbon. The 1805 ed. appears in 9 and 10 vols.
CHAv1 (Tmp TGV MWW) CHAv2 (TN MM Ado MND LLL) CHAv3 MV AYL AWW Shr WT) CHAv4 (Err Mac Jn R2 1H4) CHAv5 (2H4 H5 1H6 2H6) CHAv6 (3H6 R3 H8 Tro) CHAv7 (Tim Cor JC Ant) CHAv8 (Cym Tit Per Lr) CHAv9 (Rom Ham Oth)
Singer’s 1826 multivolume edition of the plays, The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, was created in reaction to the line of Variorum editions of Johnson, Steevens, Reed, and Boswell (1773-1821) with their sometimes prodigious commentary. The new trend featured illustrations and relatively few commentary notes. John Thompson's wood engravings, based on the works of others such as Thomas Stothard, likewise graced Singer's second edition (1856), with the playwright's name now spelled Shakespeare in the title. It reflects three subsequent decades of Shakespeare scholarship, as well as the controversies created by the Collier forgeries in the Perkins Folio. It is almost always fully collated by contemporary Shakespeare editors. The 1856 ed. was greatly improved by the help of Knight and Collier (in spite of Singer's differences with him), handsomely printed, and well respected. Singer was an autodidact like many Shakespeareans. Though he was somewhat disdainful of his 18th. c. predecessors, he relies on them heavily for commentary, most often uncredited.
1826
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1856
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The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853)
Valpy (1787-1854) was a scholar, classicist, and foremost a printer, bringing out scholarly and popular editions of modern and ancient writers His Shakespeare featured the sumptuous illustrations of Boydell accompanying the text as edited by Malone, with a minimum of commentary.
VALPYv1 (TMP TGV) VALPYv2 (MWW MM Err) VALPYv3 (MV MND LLL) VALPYv4 (TN Ado AYL) VALPYv5 (AWW Shr WT) VALPYv6 (Mac Jn R2)
VALPYv7 (1H4 2H4 H5) VALPYv8 (123H6)
VALPYv9 (R2 H8) VALPYv10 (Tro Tim Tit) VALPYv11 (Per Cor JC) VALPYv12 (Ant Cym) VALPYv13 (Lr Rom)
VALPYv14 (Ham Oth) VALPYv15 (Ven Luc Son LC PP)
Knight was a publishing polymath. He produced four fine editions of Shakespeare along with a biography and weighed in on the Collier controversy. He was a journalist, published The English Cyclopedia (vol1, vol2, vol3) and a history of England, and superintended the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. This first edition was second in line, after Samuel Weller Singer’s 1826 Shakespeare, of the major post-Variorum editions. Like Singer, he eschewed the extensive scholarly commentary of the Enlightenment editors, aiming for a general, even popular audience. The illustrations, of course, were the selling point, and are marvelously done. He titled it The Standard Edition of the Pictorial Shakspere. He seems to have been one of the first editors to include both quartos that would become Henry VI: The First and The Second Part of the Contention between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster.
Goodman's Knight page at the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive
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KNT1v5 (123 H6 1Con 2Con R3 H8)
KNT1v6 (Rom Ham Cym Oth Tim Lr)
KNT1v7 (Mac Tro Cor JC Ant Tit Per)
Studies of Shakspere (1849)
Collier chose criminality because he believed he would not be taken seriously on his own merits, even though it was well known that he had been friends with Keats, his father had entertained Wordsworth and other luminaries at the family home, and he had tutored Singer and Knight to some extent in perfectly legitimate editorial method. Nevertheless, entrusted with valuable mss. and books, he forged names and signatures and commentary in an unconvincing secretary hand. His greatest crime was his interpolation of neo-seventeenth-century marginalia in the "Perkins Folio," a copy of F2, ruining it forever. He was discovered and excoriated. Oddly, the emendations he forged were good and tenable conjectures, and would have been acceptable in book form or as part of an edition under his own name, without the folderol travesty of "Tho. Perkins." He published four Shakespeare collections and the first is usually the one that scholars consult. Because his chicanery was so intertwined with his second and third editions, scholars often quote them because, like it or not, they are part of the textual history of the plays. Some later scholars adapted those emendations in their published editions. The fourth edition (1878) was advertised as a clean break from the past, though he sometimes defends "Perkins folio" materials.
Collier's third ed. (1858) was the first appearance of "The Phoenix and Turtle" as Shakespeare's in a modern ed. His fourth ed. (1878) was the first to include Edward III, The Two Noble Kinsmen, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and even Mucedorus as Shak's in a modern ed. He omits PhT, which he had printed as Shak /s tin 1858.
1842-44
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1853
1858
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COL3v6 (Oth Ant Cym Per Ven Luc Son LC PP PhT)
1878
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COL4v5 (H8 Tro Cor Tit Rom)
COL4v6 (Tim JC Mac Ham Lr)
COL4v7 (Oth Ant Cym Per TNK)
COL4v8 (YT Muc Ven Luc Son LC PP)
Univeristy of Delaware page on the Collier Controversy
Reasons for a New Edition (1842)
VERPv1 (histories) VERPv2 (comedies) VERPv3 (tragedies)
Verplanck published what is arguably the first truly significant American edition of Shakespeare, devoting a volume each to histories, comedies, and tragedies. He descended from a venerable Dutch family in New York (b. 1786), trained as a lawyer, and served as a member of the New York State Assembly and as a member of Congress, even chairing the Ways and Means Committee. Afterward, he returned to the New York State Senate, and was a delegate to the state constitutional convention and served there until his death in 1870.
Harper Brothers entreated Verplanck to create his Shak. ed. He was part of the Knickerbocker group, along with Washington Irving (with whom he quarreled), Lydia Marie Child, and William Cullen Bryant. He satirized DeWitt Clinton in The Bucktail Bards.
The Illustrated Shakespeare (1847) featured woodcuts by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadows, et al.
Dr. Delius's edition was known as Shakspere's Werke
DELv1 (Ham Oth Lr Mac Tim Tit)
DELv2 (Rom Cym Tro Cor JC Ant)
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DELv7 (Per Ven Luc Son LC PP
Leopold Edition (1877): Frederick Furnivall's English version of Delius's text.
Bekannt wurde Delius durch seine Shakespeare-Ausgabe, die er zwischen 1854 und 1860 veröffentlichte. Dies verschaffte ihm, der seit 1855 eine Doppelprofessur für Französisch und Englisch hatte, bis 1880 einen Lehrstuhl für Anglistik, den ersten in Deutschland überhaupt. Delius war Mitbegründer und lange Zeit Vorsitzender der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft und verfasste eine Vielzahl von Aufsätzen, Abhandlungen und Übersetzungen zu diesem Themenfeld. Seine wertvolle Shakespearesammlung vermachte er der Stadtbibliothek Bremen. (Wikiwand)
Nikolaus Delius became well known for his edition of Shakespeare’s works created between 1854 and 1860. Beginning in 1855, he was made a chair in French-English studies, but because of this edition he was awarded a chair in English studies, the first ever to be given in Germany, which he held until 1880. Delius was a co-founder and chairman of the Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft (German Shakespeare Society), in which he was active for many years. He was the author of a multitude of articles, papers, and translations regarding Shakespeare, and bequeathed this material as a collection to the Bremen public library
Keightley edited Milton as well as Shakespeare, but was probably better known for his History of Greece (1848) and The Fairy Mythology (1828), both of which went through many subsequent editions. He was not conservative with Shakespeare’s text, emending freely, often judiciously, and tends to be quoted occasionally by Variorum editors
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KTLYv5 (Rom Ham Oth JC Ant Lr)
KTLYv6 (Mac Tro Tim Cor Cym Tit)
The Shakespeare Expositor (1867)
Halliwell-Phillipps (known by his first surname for most of his life) was a Shakespeare polymath and well-regarded editor and biographer to most. The dark side: some theft, book mutilation, and other chicanery. He had an enormous collection of antiquarian material that Henry Clay Folger acquired from a third party, which now resides at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
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Hudson created the second significant American edition of Shakespeare (1851-56) after that of G.C. Verplanck (1847), with others to follow, most notably the Hudson School Shakespeare (1871-73) and the magisterial final "Harvard Edition" (1881). Some scholars consider him invaluable in the line of editors and commentators.
1851-56
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1870-3 Hudson School Shakespeare
HUDSS1 (AYL MV TN 1H4 2H4 JC Ham) HUDSS2 (Tmp WT H5 R3 Lr Mac Ant) HUDSS3 (MND Ado H8 Rom Cym Cor Oth)
1881 ("The Students' Handy Edition")
vol1 (Tmp TGV MWW TN) vol2 (MM Ado MND LLL) vol3 (MV AYL AWW Shr) vol4 (WT Err Mac Jn) vol5 (R2 1H4 2H4) vol6 (H5 Ant Oth) vol7 (123H6) vol8 (R3 H8 Tro) vol9 (Tim Cor JC) vol10 (Cym Tit Per Lr) vol11 (Rom Ham) vol12 (Ven Luc Son LC PP)
1880-1 ("The Harvard Edition")
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Dyce was a Johnsonian polymath, with three editions of Shakespeare (1857; 1864-67; 1875-76), one of Skelton, Middleton, an anthology of women poets, Shirley, Will Kempe, Collins, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marlowe, and more. He was friends with Collier but did not spare him in his analysis of the Perkins folio or other forgeries. He includes "The Phoenix and Turtle" as Shak.'s in both eds and TNK in the second. The 1864-7 seems to have been the first to include TNK and PhT as Shak.'s in a single ed. Collier's 1858 included PhT but not TNK, which was included in 1878, but sans PhT.
DYCE1v1 (Tmp TGV MWW MM Err) DYCE1v2 (Ado LLL MND MV AYL Shr AWW) DYCE1v3 (TN WT Jn R2 1H4 2H4 H5) DYCEv14 (123H6 R3 H8 Tro Cor) DYCE1v5 (Tit Rom Tim JC Mac Ham Lr) DYCE1v6 (Oth Ant Cym Per Ven Luc Son LC, PP PhT)
DYCE2v1 (Tmp TGV MWW MM) DYCE2v2 (Err Ado LLL MND MV) DYCE2v3 AYL Shr AWW TN WT) DYCE2v4 (Jn R2 1H4 2H4 H5) DYCE2v5 (123H6 R3 H8) DYCE2v6 (Tro Cor Tit Rom Tim JC) DYCE2v7 (Mac Ham Lr Oth Ant Cym) DYCE2v8 (Per TNK Ven Luc Son LC PP PhT) DYCE2v9 (glossary)
Staunton was much better known as a chess player than a Shakespearean, but enjoyed editing so much that he took it up as a kind of vocation. The Plays of Shakespeare includes the poetry, and features the excellent illustrations of John Gilbert
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STAUv2 (1859 AWW H5 AYL Per TN 123H6 Tim R3 MM H8 Cym)
STAUv3 (1860 Tmp Lr Cor WT Tro Ham JC Mac Ant Tit Oth Ven Luc Son LC PP PhT)
Known as Grant White, just as John Dover Wilson was known as Dover Wilson and C.F. Tucker Brooke preferred to omit his praenomen, he was probably the first truly original American editor.
(1857-66--some vols. are the 1888 rpt. of this ed.)
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1883 Riverside ed.
WH2v1 (Tmp TGV MWW MM Err Ado LLL) WH2v2 (MND MV AYL Shr AWW TN) WH2v3 (Jn R2 1H4 2H4 H5 H6) WH2v4 (2H6 3H6 R3 H8 Ven Luc Son LC PP PhT) WH2v5 (Tro Cor Tit Rom Tim JC Mac) WH2v6 (Ham Lr Oth Ant Cym Per)
Studies in Shakespeare (1886)
Rolfe was an educator who spent most of his career in Boston and environs. It is said that George Lyman Kittredge used his editions of the plays in his courses at Harvard. He helped with the revision of George L. Craik's The English of Shakespeare (1872), focusing on JC. He edited Tennyson, Milton, Ovid, and Vergil.
"The Friendly Shakespeare," 40 vols. (1870-1911)
Ado Ant. AWW AYL Cor. Cym. Err. 1H4 2H4 H5 1H6 2H6 3H6 Ham. H8 JC Jn. LLL
Lr. Mac. MM MND MV MWW Oth. Per. Poems
R2 R3 Rom. Shr. Son TGV Tim. Tit. Tmp. TN TNK Tro. WT
Life of Shakespeare (1904)
The Globe was immensely popular and affordable. The original print run of 50,000 was thought to be a disastrous exercise in publishing overconfidence. As it happens, that was not nearly enough to satisfy demand, and its sales reached 100, 000 copies. Its line-numbers and act and scene divisions are still used for Norton and Riverside editions. It was the first truly critical edition. Each play for the first time was completely collated by the earliest editions of the the given work generally known.
Its final editors, William George Clark (1823-78) and William Aldis Wright (1831-1914) are generally credited with standardizing the spelling of Shakespeare's name as is seen now, rather than the many forms in early editions according to his signatures or interpretations of them.
Open Source Shakespeare page on the Globe.
Both Clark (pictured) and Wright reached Cambridge from humble origins, the former the son of a farmer and the latter the son of a Baptist minister. Wright's adhered to his family's faith, so his religious nonconformity prevented him becoming a fellow at Trinity College until 1878, even though he was the college librarian. Clark's Anglicanism meant he could reach this status by the age of 23 in 1852. It is alleged that the two men were antipodal in personality, Clark gregarious and pleasant, Wright a dour loner.
Wright (pictured) and Clark bore a resemblance to one another. Neither married, seeing their profession as a vocation. Each read several languages and produced scholarship on ancient texts, Clark on Greek antiquity, Wright on the Bible. They were both self-taught textual scholars and encouraged each other's ideas for innovation, such as standardized act, scene, and line-numbers, which greatly aided scholarship and reference work.
Open Source Shakespeare site on Clark and Wright
In tandem, GLO and CAM1 were arguably the first edition in the modern dual incarnation of a one-volume and multivolume form. William George Clark (pictured) and William Aldis Wright were the editors for the Globe and the last eight volumes of CAM1, Clark with John Glover (1823-84) on the first. Glover was Librarian at Trinity College, Cambridge. When Glover left Cambridge to be Vicar of Brading, Isle of Wight in 1862, Wright took over his position with the university and with Clark on the Globe.
The editors were scrupulous and attentive in their careful collation of the four seventeenth-century folios in establishing the texts of the plays.
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CAM1v9 (Ant Cym Per Ven Luc Son LC PP Pht)
William Aldis Wright (pictured) prepared this edition entirely by himself. He changed the content of some volumes and moved the diplomatic transcripts of the quartos to the last volume.
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William Aldis Wright (pictued) assumed complete control of this series on the retirement of Clark. These are 17 handsome single editions that reflect the best of the Cambridge work, plus two note volumes.
CLN1AYL CLN1COR CLN1H8 CLN11H4 CLNHAM CLN1JC CLN1JN CLN1LR CLN1H5 CLN1MAC CLN1MV CLN1MND CLN1ADO CLN1TN CLNR3 CLNTMP CLNR2 CLNNOTES1 CLNNOTES2
W. J. Craig (1843-1906) taught at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Trinity College, Dublin. He preferred private tutoring in London, for which he was highly esteemed. One of his pupils was the future great Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki. This helped add to Shakespeare's reputation and popularity in Japan, influencing artists such as Akira Kurosawa, the film director known for his adaptations of Mac (Throne of Blood) and Lr. (Ran).
Craig's major project was a glossary of Shakespeare that he never finished. Yet his ed. (1891) was his legacy, serving as Oxford's Shakespeare for almost a century. R . B. McKerrow had planned an old-spelling complete works, even writing a Prolegomenon laying out his principles (1938), but death intervened.
Although there is some debate about the matter, Pickering (1796-1854) is often credited with developing the first dyed cloth binding on boards with the title printed on the spine. He was apprenticed to a printer in 1810 and set up his own shingle in 1820. He was an impresario and a raconteur, spending money freely. He enjoyed the craft of printing and bookbinding, but not the business end of it. Pickering specialized in miniature books, and his 1825 Shakespere was the smallest edition (9 x 5 cm) known up to that time. It could be said that he invented the modern pocket book. The text is said to follow v1778 or v1785. Pickering also edited the first modern edition of Marlowe (1826).
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(Illustration: William Pickering and Charles Whittingham in the summer house at Chiswick)
"Cornwall" was Procter's pseudonym (1787-1874). He was a Romantic-era polymath who wrote tragedies, poetry, songs, and criticism. He probably did not edit this Shakespeare, featuring Kenny Meadows's spectacular illustrations, but he wrote the introductory material. This relatively forgotten writer was greatly admired by Alexander Pushkin, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Wilkie Collins, the latter two dedicating their most celebrated novels to him, Vanity Fair and The Woman in White. Procter was a Commissioner in Lunacy, and oversaw mental health care in Britain.
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Procter's Britannica Entry
There had been no performance-oriented Shakespeare since Bell's edition of 1773, which printed promptbooks from Drury Lane. Irving and Marshall's edition of 1889-90 changed that. Of humble and obscure origin, Irving (born John Henry Brodribb in 1838) was self-educated, flamboyant, and wonderfuly entertaining as an actor in Shakespeare and popular repertory. He took over the management of the Lyceum Theatre in the West End in 1878. The year was momentous because he began his professional partnership with Ellen Terry (1847-1928). They collaborated on a number of magnificent Shakespeare productions, including a MV that ran for 260 nights, with Terry as Portia and Irving as Shylock.
Irving was especially keen on making his edition for actors, with cues and added stage-directions. Marshall and many other great scholars wrote the other notes and the introductions. Each volume is lavishly illustrated with over 500 drawings by Gordon Browne.
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(Terry and Irving in an adaptation of Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. They were fortunate to have each other, and they knew it.)
Lynne Truss' essay on Terry's Four Lectures
