Variorum Shakespeare
Variorum Shakespeare.The idea of a variorum edition that would include a full range of information about Shakespeare, his stage, as well as texts annotated with the ‘corrections and illustrations of various commentators’ (title page, 1803, 1813, 1821) grew out of the work of Dr Johnson, George Steevens, and Edmond Malone. Dr Johnson's edition of Shakespeare appeared in 1765 and provided a basis for the more scholarly edition by Steevens in 1773. This edition was reissued in ten volumes in 1773, and again in 1778–80, and 1785. A fourth edition, expanded to fifteen volumes, appeared in 1793, and this was followed in 1803 by a fifth edition in 21 volumes, revised and augmented by Isaac Reed. This edition, which incorporated Malone's final researches on the English stage and on the chronology of Shakespeare's plays, is generally regarded as the first Variorum edition. Steevens disliked Shakespeare's poems, and omitted them from editions under his sway, so...
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