Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, tragedies, and poems. Vol. II

Second of 6 volumes in 8vo. pp. [4], 724. Original green cloth. Inscribed to David Gouny by his mother Mary. 

A revisal or reissue of John Payne Collier’s 1842-1844 Shakespeare edition, with readings from the Perkins folio incorporated and Collier’s acerbic comments on his rival editors Dyce and Singer. The edition was published by Whittaker as a complete six-volume set in April 1858. The ‘Life of Shakespeare’ was also somewhat updated and newly indexed and individual prefaces were occasionally enlarged, but as often as not with false evidence. The set also contains some additional commentary, and a very few altered readings, other than Perkinsian, from editorial reconsideration or conjecture since 1844. Six out of the ten illustrative ballads that Collier added to the individual play prefaces (‘The Inchanted Island’ prefacing ‘The Tempest’ (v. 1) and ‘The tragedie of Othello the Moore’ prefacing ‘Othello’ (v. 6); ‘The Lamentable Burning of the Globe Play-House’ prefacing ‘Henry VIII (v. 4);’ ‘Agincourt, or the English Bowman’s Glory’ (v.3) and ‘Of King Richard the Third’ (v. 4); ‘The Lamentable Death of King John, poysoned by a Monk at Swinstead’ (v. 2)) are partly or wholly fabrications. In volume I, Collier signaled a spurious discovery concerning John Marston, a letter which Collier erroneously assigned to his namesake, the playwright and poet John Marston (1575?-1634).

Content:

• v. l. History of the English drama and stage to the time of Shakespeare. The life of William Shakespeare. The tempest. The two gentlemen of Verona. The merry wives of Windsor. Measure for measure. The comedy of errors
• v. 2. Much ado about nothing. Love's labour's lost. Midsummer-night's dream. Merchant of Venice. As you like it. Taming of the shrew. All's well that ends well. Twelfth night
• v. 3. The winter's tale. King John. First[-Second]part of King Henry IV. King Henry V. First part of King Henry VI
• v. 4. Second[-Third] part of King Henry VI. King Richard III. King Henry VIII. Troilus and Cressida. Coriolanus
• v. 5. Titus Andronicus. Romeo and Juliet. Timon of Athens. Julius Caesar. Macbeth. Hamlet. King Lear
• v. 6. Othello. Antony and Cleopatra. Cymbeline. Pericles. Venus and Adonis. Lucrece. Sonnets. A lover's complaint. The passionate pilgrim. The phoenix and turtle. Indicial glossary.

See A. & J. Freeman, John Payne Collier. Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 2004, I, pp. 692-694, 709-711; II, A89a.

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