Reasons for a New Edition of Shakespeare's Works |
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Author:
| Collier, John Payne |
ISBN: | 978-0-217-74782-0 |
Publication Date: | Oct 2010 |
Publisher: | General Books LLC
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | AUD $13.37 |
Book Description:
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REASONS, The object of the following pages is to answer the question? Why is it proposed to publish a new edition of the Works of Shakespeare ? In an undertaking of the kind, no point is of so Text of the much importance as to settle the text of the author; and notwithstanding the pains bestowed upon the...
More DescriptionPurchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REASONS, The object of the following pages is to answer the question? Why is it proposed to publish a new edition of the Works of Shakespeare ? In an undertaking of the kind, no point is of so Text of the much importance as to settle the text of the author; and notwithstanding the pains bestowed upon the language of Shakespeare, from the days of Howe to the present time, I shall be able to show that his Editors have done much that they ought not to have attempted, as well as left undone much that they ought to have accomplished. They have been guilty of serious offences of omission as well as of commission; and this may be said with all due respect for their labours and their learning, for the industry with which they have at times prosecuted their inquiries, and for the acuteness and knowledge many of them have displayed in the investigation of disputed questions. It is of course impossible to bestow too great pains on ascertaining and fixing the true reading of Shakespeare; and minute and patient accuracy of comparison of the old copies, quarto and folio, printed in his lifetime or soon afterwards, is indispensable. This is the most sacred part of the duty of an Editor, and the absence of that minute and patient accuracy is unpardonable in any person who undertakes the task of producing an impression of the works of such an Author. Means of Let us examine briefly, in the first place, the means settling the f Text. for settling the text that remain to us, and then, the manner in which those means have been hitherto employed. Dramatic pieces in manuscript by Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massiuger, Middleton, and others, are in existence '; but it is a remarkable fact, that not a single written fragment of any of the Plays of Shakespeare has come down t...