The plays and poems of William Shakespeare, with the purest text, and the briefest notes. Edited by J. Payne Collier. Vol. I

The plays and poems of William Shakespeare, with the purest text, and the briefest notes. Edited by J. Payne Collier. Vol. I

Author: Shakespeare, William ; Collier, J. Payne (John Payne) (ed.)

Year: 1878

First of 8 volumes in 4to. pp. [4], vi, [2], 84, 86, 106, 110, 72, 100. Half morocco, with wrappers bound in. One of 58 sets printed. Collier’s last Shakespeare edition, designed for a mature reader, with no general or individual introductions, the most perfunctory of notes on early quartos, minimal commentary, and above all an arbitrarily settled text, whose ‘purity’ was not over-sullied with citations of source. While some of the Perkins readings were signaled (mostly as ‘indisputable’), more than half of them were not. Contains: Tempest ; Two gentlemen of Verona ; Merry wives of Windsor ; Measure for measure ; Comedy of errors ; Much ado about nothing. See A. & J. Freeman, John Payne Collier. Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 2004, II, 975-980; A184. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.