[SHAKESPEARE]; ‘HAMILTON, N.E.S.A.’ [i.e. COLLIER, John Payne].
An inquiry into the genuineness of the manuscript corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's annotated Shakspere, folio, 1632; and of certain Shaksperian documents likewise published by Mr. Collier.
London, Richard Bentley, 1860.
4to, pp. [4]; 155, [1, blank], + 3 plates of facsimiles; title printed in red and black, partially detached at head, a few leaves at the start lightly creased, generally a very good copy in the original publisher's cloth, embossed to a panel design, title gilt to upper board, light wear to extremities; armorial bookplate of John Climenson to the front pastedown.
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An inquiry into the genuineness of the manuscript corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's annotated Shakspere, folio, 1632; and of certain Shaksperian documents likewise published by Mr. Collier.
First edition, the result of research by the Keeper and Assistant Keeper of manuscripts at the British Library, Frederic Madden and Nicholas Hamilton.
John Payne Collier (1789–1883), a noted Shakespearian scholar, first advertised his acquisition of a copy of the second Shakespeare folio in The Athenaeum of 31st January 1852. The folio in question, now in the Huntington Library, contains some 25,000 manuscript annotations, ranging from punctuation to the insertion of additional lines. Collier attributed the notes to the supposed contemporary owner of the work, a Thomas Perkins. However, it was not long before literary scholars began to raise questions as to the authenticity of the annotations, and by 1859 Madden had openly condemned them as fraudulent. This detailed analysis of the annotations makes a clear case for branding Collier, himself a master of palaeography, the perpetrator.
While not the first analysis to accuse Collier, the present work is by far the most influential and best documented rebuttal of authenticity
Ebisch & Schucking, p.26; Jaggard, p. 138.
