University of Virginia Library

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.