Part 23 (1/2)

Edmund Malone, 1741-1812

Edmund Malone, who lacked Steevens's quick wit and incisive style, was a laborious and aist, without much ear for poetry or delicate literary taste He threw abundance of new light on Shakespeare's biography, and on the chronology and sources of his works, while his researches into the beginnings of the English stage added a new chapter of first-rate ilish literary history To Malone is due the first rational 'attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays attributed to Shakespeare ritten' His earliest results on the topic were contributed to Steevens's edition of 1778 Two years later he published, as a supple a history of the Elizabethan stage, with reprints of Arthur Brooke's 'Romeus and Juliet,' Shakespeare's Poems, and the plays falsely ascribed to him in the Third and Fourth Folios A quarrel with Steevens followed, and was never closed In 1787 Malone issued 'A Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI,' tending to show that those plays were not originally written by Shakespeare In 1790 appeared his edition of Shakespeare in ten volumes, the first in two parts

Varioru booksellers as the 'First Variorum' edition of Shakespeare was prepared by Steevens's friend, Isaac Reed, after Steevens's death It was based on a copy of Steevens's work of 1793, which had been enriched with numerous manuscript additions, and it e editors It was published in twenty-one volumes in 1803 The 'Second Variorum' edition, which was mainly a reprint of the first, was published in twenty-one volumes in 1813 The 'Third Varioruer, the son of Dr Johnson's biographer It was based on Malone's edition of 1790, but included massive accumulations of notes left in aged on a revision of his edition, but died in 1812, before it was completed Boswell's 'Malone,' as the neork is often called, appeared in twenty-one volumes in 1821 It is the most valuable of all collective editions of Shakespeare's works, but the three voluraphy and writings, and the illustrative notes brought together in the final volued and are unindexed; many of the essays and notes break off abruptly at the point at which they were left at Malone's death A new 'Variorum'

edition, on an exhaustive scale, was undertaken by Mr H Howard Furness of Philadelphia, and eleven volumes have appeared since 1871 ('Ro Lear,' 'Othello,' 'Merchant of Venice,' 'As You Like It,' 'Teht's Dream,' and 'Winter's Tale')

Nineteenth-century editors

Of nineteenth-century editors who have prepared collective editions of Shakespeare's ith original annotations those who have hteenth century are Alexander Dyce, Howard Staunton, Nikolaus Delius, and the Cae Clark (1821-1878) and Dr Aldis Wright

Alexander Dyce, 1798-1869 Howard Staunton, 1810-1874 The Cae edition, 1863-6

Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as Steevens in Elizabethan literature, and especially in the drama of the period, and his edition of Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was first published in 1857, has ood textual elossary; but Dyce's annotations are not always adequate, and often tantalise the reader by their brevity Howard Staunton's edition first appeared in three volumes between 1868 and 1870

He also ell read in contemporary literature and was an acute textual critic His introductions bring together e history

Nikolaus Delius's edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven volumes between 1854 and 1861 Delius's text is forhly A fifth edition in two volue edition, which first appeared in nine volumes between 1863 and 1866, exhaustively notes the textual variations of all preceding editions, and supplies the best and fullest _apparatus criticus_ (Of new editions, one dated 1887 is also in nine volumes, and another, dated 1893, in forty volumes)

Other nineteenth-century editions

Other editors of the complete works of Shakespeare of the nineteenth century whose labours, although of some value, present fewer distinctive characteristics are:--Williaer (1826, 10 vols, printed at the Chiswick Press for Willia, illustrated by Stothard and others; reissued in 1856 with essays by Williaht, with discursive notes and pictorial illustrations by F W Fairholt and others ('Pictorial edition,' 8 vols, including biography and the doubtful plays, 1838-43, often reissued under different designations); Bryan Waller Procter, _ie_ Barry Cornwall (1839-43, 3 vols); John Payne Collier (1841-4, 8 vols; another edition, 8 vols, privately printed, 1878, 4to); Samuel Phelps, the actor (1852-4, 2 vols; another edition, 1882-4); J O

Halliwell (1853-61, 15 vols folio, with an encyclopaedic collection of annotations of earlier editors and pictorial illustrations); Richard Grant White (Boston, USA, 1857-65, 12 vols); W J Rolfe (New York, 1871-96, 40 vols); the Rev H N Hudson (the Harvard edition, Boston, 1881, 20 vols) The latest complete annotated editions published in this country are 'The Henry Irving Shakespeare,' edited by F A Marshall and others--especially useful for notes on stage history (8 vols

1888-90)--and 'The Temple Shakespeare,' concisely edited by Mr Israel Gollancz (38 vols 12mo, 1894-6)

Of one-volume editions of the unannotated text, the best are the Globe, edited by W G Clark and Dr Aldis Wright (1864, and constantly reprinted--since 1891 with a new and useful glossary); the Leopold (1876, from the text of Delius, with preface by Dr Furnivall); and the Oxford, edited by Mr W J Craig (1894)

XX--POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

Shakespeare defied at every stage in his career the laws of the classical drahshod over the unities of time, place, and action

There were critics in his day who zealously championed the ancient rules, and vieith distrust any infringeenius--its revelation of new methods of dramatic art--was not lost on the lovers of the ancient ways; and even those who, to assuage their consciences, entered a forainst his innovations, soon swelled the chorus of praise hich his elcooers, cultured and uncultured alike The unauthorised publishers of 'Troilus and Cressida' in 1608 faithfully echoed public opinion when they prefaced the ith the note: 'This author's comedies are so framed to the life that they serve for thesuch a dexterity and power of wit that the most displeased with plays are pleased with his comediesSo much and such savoured salt of wit is in his coht of pleasure to be born in the sea that brought forth Venus'

Ben Jonson's tribute

Anticipating the final verdict, the editors of the First Folio wrote, seven years after Shakespeare's death: 'These plays have had their trial already and stood out all appeals' {327a} Ben Jonson, the staunchest champion of classical canons, noted that Shakespeare 'wanted art,' but he allowed him, in verses prefixed to the First Folio, the first place a those of Greece and Roe: