based on Malone's edition of 1790, but included massive accumulations of
notes left in manuscript by Malone at his death. Malone had been long
engaged on a revision of his edition, but died in 1812, before it was
completed. Boswell's 'Malone,' as the new work is often called, appeared
in twenty-one volumes in 1821. It is the most valuable of all collective
editions of Shakespeare's works, but the three volumes of preliminary
essays on Shakespeare's biography and writings, and the illustrative
notes brought together in the final volume, are confusedly arranged and
are unindexed; many of the essays and notes break off abruptly at the
point at which they were left at Malone's death. A new 'Variorum'
edition, on an exhaustive scale, was undertaken by Mr. H. Howard Furness
of Philadelphia, and eleven volumes have appeared since 1871 ('Romeo and
Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet,' 2 vols., 'King Lear,' 'Othello,' 'Merchant
of Venice,' 'As You Like It,' 'Tempest,' 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and
'Winter's Tale').

Nineteenth-century editors.

Of nineteenth-century editors who have prepared collective editions of
Shakespeare's work with original annotations those who have most
successfully pursued the great traditions of the eighteenth century are
Alexander Dyce, Howard Staunton, Nikolaus Delius, and the Cambridge
editors William George Clark (1821-1878) and Dr. Aldis Wright.

Alexander Dyce, 1798-1869. Howard Staunton, 1810-1874. The Cambridge
edition, 1863-6.

Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as Steevens in Elizabethan
literature, and especially in the drama of the period, and his edition of
Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was first published in 1857, has many
new and valuable illustrative notes and a few good textual emendations,
as well as a useful glossary; but Dyce's annotations are not always
adequate, and often tantalise the reader by their brevity. Howard
Staunton's edition first appeared in three volumes between 1868 and 1870.
He also was well read in contemporary literature and was an acute textual
critic. His introductions bring together much interesting stage history.
Nikolaus Delius's edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven volumes
between 1854 and 1861. Delius's text is formed on sound critical
principles and is to be trusted thoroughly. A fifth edition in two
volumes appeared in 1882. The Cambridge edition, which first appeared in
nine volumes between 1863 and 1866, exhaustively not