Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CLI-COM |
|
|
COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE (17891883) , English Shakespearian critic, was born in London, on the 11th of January 1789. His father, John Dyer Collier (17621825), was a successful journalist, and his connexion with the press obtained for his son a position on the Morning Chronicle as leader writer, dramatic critic and reporter, which continued till 1847; he was also for some time a reporter for The Times. He was summoned before the House
minor publications he produced in 18251827 a new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, and in 1833 a supplementary volume entitled Five Old Plays. In 1831 appeared his History of English Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, a badly arranged, but valuable work
chief
House
series of literary fabrications, which may be charitably, and perhaps not unjustly, attributed to literary monomania, but of which it is difficult to speak with patience, so completely did they for a long time bewilder the chronology of Shakespeare's writings, and such suspicion have they thrown upon MS. evidence in general. After New Facts, New Particulars and Further Particulars respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster, Collier produced (1852) the famous Perkins Folio, a copy of the second folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page. On this book were numerous MS. emendations of Shakespeare said by Collier to be from the hand of " an old corrector." He published these corrections as Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare (1852), and boldly incorporated them in his edition (1853) of Shakespeare. Their authenticity was disputed by S. W. Singer in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853) and by E. A. Brae in Literary Cookery (18J5) on internal evidence; and when in 1859 the folio was submitted by its owner, the duke of Devonshire, to experts at the British Museum, the emendations were incontestably proved to be forgeries of modern date. Collier was exposed by Mr Nicholas Hamilton in his Inquiry (1860). The point whether he was deceiver ordeceived was left undecided, but the falsifications of which he was unquestionably guilty among the MSS. at Dulwich College have left little doubt respecting it. He had produced the Memoirs of Edward Alleyn for the Shakespeare Society in 1841. He followed up this volume with the Alleyn Papers (1843) and the Diary of P. Henslowe (1845). He forged the name of Shakespeare in a genuine letter at Dulwich, and the spurious entries in Alleyn's Diary were proved to be by Collier's hand when the sale of his library in 1884 gave access to a transcript he had made of the Diary with interlineations corresponding with the Dulwich forgeries. No statement of his can be accepted without verification, and no manuscript he has handled without careful examination, but he did much useful work
Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (1865); he reprinted a great
For an account of the discussion raised by Collier's emendations see C.M. Ingleby., Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy (1861). End of Article: COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE (17891883) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/CLI_COM/COLLIER_JOHN_PAYNE_17891883_.html"> COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE (17891883) </a> |
|
|
(Previous) COLLIER, JEREMY (1650-1726) |
(Next) COLLIN |
|
Sponsored Advertisements