5. John Payne Collier, ed. Plays and Poems. 8 vols.
1878. Serially issued in 43 parts, 1875-78.
At the end of his long and productive life as Shakespearean scholar
John Payne Collier (1789-1883), having already done three complete
editions of Shakespeare in 1842-44, 1853, and 1858, between his
eighty-sixth and eighty-ninth
years produced yet a fourth. Collier had the edition privately printed by
Thomas Richards, and he sold it in monthly parts to at first fifty and later,
when printing costs increased, to fifty-eight subscribers, whom he thanks
in a Preface dated 11 Jan. 1878 "for their four-years-continued
approbation." In his advertisement to potential subscribers in the
Athenaeum of 9 January 1875 (No. 2463, p. 52) he promises
a text and notes "avoiding all controversy," and he does in fact withdraw
the majority of the controversial emendations from his notorious Perkins
Folio that he had included in earlier editions, substituting original quarto or
folio readings and numerous new readings. Although in the first issue
(Tmp.) Collier remarks that the monthly
parts will be "separately paged, in order that they may be arranged
according to the wish of each recipient," in fact he expected them to be
bound in order of receipt, and at regular intervals issued title pages for each
of seven volumes, naming the plays for that volume in their order of
appearance. These title pages were included in the issues of Ado,
AWW, 1H4, R3, Rom., Lr., and TNK, and are dated
1875 for vols. 1 and 2, 1876 for vols. 3, 4, and 5, and 1877 for vols. 6 and
7. When Collier finally decided to add an eighth volume including the
Poems (as well as apocryphal plays) he retroactively changed the title page
of the edition from Plays to Plays and Poems
and
in the final issue included revised title pages for all volumes, dated 1878.
Since the bound volumes usually bear these replacement title pages, the
edition is cited and catalogued as published in 1878.
In the Folger Library set of unbound parts, tipped into a dozen
numbers
—
Wiv., MV, AWW, Jn., 1H4, H5, 3H6, Rom., Mac., Oth.,
Per., and
Mucedorus —are notices from Collier
announcing the next two or three plays to appear. Since these notices are
usually dated, as are the original title pages for the first seven volumes,
establishing the sequence and approximate dates for the individual plays is
a simple matter. Of the twenty-eight plays mentioned in these notices, all
are clearly in the sequence indicated by the seven original title pages, and
so we may safely assume that the other plays are in the same sequence.
Since more than twelve numbers appeared each year, it is impossible to
give exact dates for every issue; instead, in the table below, the plays are
listed in sequence and dates are given for those issues in which appear dated
notices or title pages:
- Vol. I: Tmp., TGV, Wiv. (notice, n. d.),
MM,
Err., Ado (t. p., 1875)
- Vol. II: LLL, MND, MV (notice, July 1875),
AYL, Shr., AWW (notice, n. d., t. p., 1875)
- Vol. III: TN, WT, Jn. (Dec. 1875), Ed3, R2,
1H4 (notice, Feb. 1876; t. p., 1876)
- Vol. IV: 2H4, H5 (notice, Apr. 1876), 1H6,
2H6, 3H6 (notice, June 1876), R3 (t. p.,
1876)
- Vol. V: H8, Tro., Cor., Tit., Rom. (notice, Dec.
1876; t. p., 1876)
- Vol. VI: Tim., JC, Mac. (notice, Feb. 1877),
Ham., Lr. (t. p., 1877)
- Vol. VII: Oth. (notice, May 1877), Ant.,
Cym.,
Per. (notice, n. d.), TNK (t. p., 1877)
- Vol. VIII: Yorkshire Tragedy, Mucedorus (notice,
Oct. 1877), Ven. & Luc., Son. & Misc.
Poems (Preface, 11 Jan. 1878; t. p., 1878).
Although Collier's Preface speaks of "Four-years-continued approbation,"
the time span is really three years, since he advertised for subscribers in
Jan. 1875 and completed the edition by Jan. 1878.