Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare's Plays

An 1852 account of the discovery of a 'corrected' Shakespeare Second Folio, published here with three pieces from 1860 debating its authenticity.

John Payne Collier (1789–1883), editor and forger, published this 1852 account of his discovery of a 'corrected' Second Folio of Shakespeare. It is reissued here along with Nicholas Hamilton's inquiry into its genuineness, Collier's rebuttal, and Thomas Duffus Hardy's review of the controversy (all published in 1860).The editor and forger John Payne Collier (1789–1883) claimed to have discovered a Second Folio of Shakespeare which had been 'corrected' in a mid-seventeenth-century hand. He published this catalogue of the emendations, including his commentary on them, in 1852. Collier then presented the so-called 'Perkins Folio' to the Duke of Devonshire, whose successor allowed it to be loaned in 1859 to the British Museum, where a thorough examination exposed it as a forgery. A storm of controversy followed and three of the key documents in the debate, all published in 1860, are also reissued here: 'An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere Folio, 1632' by Nicholas Hamilton (d.1915), assistant keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum; Collier's attempt to refute Hamilton's findings; and 'A Review of the Present State of the Shakespearian Controversy' by Thomas Duffus Hardy (1804–78).