E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Shakespeare, William
(b. Stratford-upon-Avon, 1564; d. Stratford, April 26th, 1616). Furnivall’s order:—FIRST PERIOD: (? 1588–94): “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (? 1588–9); “The Comedy of Errors” (? 1589); “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (? 1590–1); “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (? 1590–1), “Romeo and Juliet” (1591–3); “Venus and Adonis” (1593); “The Rape of Lucrece” (1593–4), “The Passionate Pilgrim” (? 1589–99); “Richard II.” (? 1593); 1, 2, 3 “Henry VI.” (? 1592–4); “Richard III.” (? 1594). SECOND PERIOD (? 1595–1601): “King John” (? 1595); “The Merchant of Venice” (? 1596); “The Taming of the Shrew” (? 1596–7); 1 “Henry IV.” (1596–7); 2 “Henry IV.” (1597–8); “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (1598–9); “Henry V:” (1599); “Much Ado about Nothing” (1599–1600); “As You Like It” (1600); “Twelfth Night” (1601); “All’s Well that Ends Well” (1601–2); “Sonnets” (? 1592–1608). THIRD PERIOD (1601–1608): “Julius Cæsar” (1601); “Hamlet” (1602–3); “Measure for Measure” (? 1603); “Othello” (? 1604); “Macbeth” (1605–6); “King Lear” (1605–6); “Troilus and Cressida” (? 1606–7); “Antony and Cleopatra” (? 1606–7); “Coriolanus” (? 1607–8); “Timon of Athens” (? 1607–8). FOURTH PERIOD (1609–1613): “Pericles” (1608–9); “The Tempest,” (1609–10); “Cymbeline” (? 1610); “The Winter’s Tale” (1611); “Henry VIII.” (1612–13). Shakespeare’s name has also been more or less connected with “Arden of Feversham” (1592); “The Two Noble Kinsmen” (before 1616); “A Lover’s Complaint” (1609); “Sir Thomas More” (written about 1590); “Sir John Oldcastle” (1600); “The Passionate Pilgrim” (1599); “Titus Andronicus” (1594); “Edward III.” (1596); and “A Yorkshire Tragedy” (1608). First folio, 1623; third, 1664. The leading editions by Rowe (1709), Pope (1725), Theobald (1733), Hanmer (1744–6), Warbunton (1747), Blair (1753), Johnson (1765), Capell (1767–8), Johnson and Steevens (1773), Bell (the Stage Edition, 1774), Ayscough (1784), Nichols (1786–90), Malone (1790), Boydell (1802), Johnson, Steevens, and Reed (1803), Chalmers, the Cambridge Edition (1805), Bowdler (the “Family” Edition, 1818), Harness (1825), Singer (1826), Campbell (1838), Knight (1838–43), Proctor (1839–43), Collier (1841), Hazlitt (1851), Halliwell-Phillipps (1851–53), Hudson (1852–57), Collier (1853), Halliwell - Phillipps (1853–61), Lloyd (1856), Dyce (1857), Grant-White (1857–60), Staunton (1858–60), Mary Cowden Clarke (1860), Carruthers and Chambers (1861), Clark and Wright (“Globe” Edition, 1863–66, and Clarendon Press Select Plays), Dyce (1866–68), Keightley (1867), Hunter (separate plays, 1869–73), Moberly (separate plays, 1872–73), Bell (1875), and Delius and Furnivall (“Leopold” Edition, 1877). The Biographies of Shakespeare, besides those contained in the above-mentioned editions, are by:—Gentleman (1774), Wheler (1806), Britton (1814) Drake (1817 and 1828), Skottowe (1824), Wheeler (1824), Moncreiff (1824), Harvey (1825), Symmonds (1826), Neill (1861), Fullom (1861), and Kenney (1864). For foreign Biography, see Guizot, “Shakespeare” (1841), Delius, “Der Mythus von William Shakespeare” (Bonn, 1851) and Grant-White (Boston, U.S., 1865). For Criticism, see, in addition to the above editions and biographies, Abbot’s “Shakespearian Grammar,” Bathurst’s “Shakespeare’s Versification,” T. S. Baynes’ “Shakespeare Studies,” Brown’s “Sonnets of Shakespeare,” Bucknill’s “Mad Folk of Shakespeare,” S. T. Coleridge’s “Literary Remains” and “Biographia Literaria,” Hartley Coleridge’s “Notes and Marginalia,” Cohn’s “Shakespeare in Germany,” Courtenay’s “Commentaries on Shakespeare,” Craik’s “English of Shakespeare,” De Quincey’s “Essays,” Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” Dowden’s “Mind and Art of Shakspere,” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” Farmer’s “Learning of Shakespeare,” Fletcher’s “Studies of Shakespeare,” Hallam’s “Literary History,” Hazlitt’s “Characters of Shakespear’s Plays,” “English Poets,” and “Comic Writers,” Heraud’s “Inner Life of Shakspere,” Leigh Hunt’s “Imagination and Fancy,” Hudson’s “Art and Characters of Shakespeare,” Ingleby’s “Complete View of the Shakespearian Controversy” (1861), Ingram (in “Dublin Afternoon Lectures,” 1863), Jameson’s “Characteristics of Shakespeare’s Women,” Lamb’s “Works,” Langbaine’s “Dramatick Poets,” Lowell’s “Among my Books,” Maginn’s “Shakespeare Papers,” Massey’s “‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets and his Private Friends,” Mrs. Montagu’s “Genius of Shakespeare,” Richardson’s “Essays on Shakespeare’s Characters,” Reed’s “Lectures,” Rushton’s “Shakspeare’s Euphuism” and “Shakspeare a Lawyer,” Ruskin (in “Dublin Afternoon Lectures,” 1869), Simpson’s “Philosophy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” Walker’s “Versification of Shakespeare,” Wordsworth’s “Shakespeare’s Knowledge and Use of the Bible,” etc. See also French’s “Shakespeareana Genealogica” (1869), Friswell’s “Life Portraits of Shakespeare,” Green’s “Shakespere and the Emblem Writers,” Ingleby’s “Shakspere Allusion Books,” and his “Shakspere, the Man and the Book” (1877), W. C. Hazlitt’s “Shakespeare Jest Books” and “Shakespeare’s Library,” Mrs. Cowden Clarke’s “Concordance to Shakespeare,” Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” John Bartlett’s “Concordance,” and the various publications of the Shakespeare and New Shakespeare Societies, etc. Among foreign authorities on Shakespeare may be mentioned the biographies by Moratin (Spanish, 1795), and Buchon (Dutch, 1824). France has yielded, besides the Lives by Hugo, Guizot (1821), Villemain (1840), Pichot (1841), and Chasles (1851), Taine’s “History of English Literature,” Mezière’s “Shakespeare, ses Œuvres et ses Critiques,” Lacroix’s “Influence de Shakspeare sur le Théatre Français,” and Reymond’s “Corneille, Shakespeare, et Goethe.” From Germany we have Goethe’s “Shakespeare und Kein Ende,” the “Shakespeare Jahrbuch,” Gervinus’s “Commentaries,” Schlegel’s “Dramatic Art and Literature,” Ulrici’s “Dramatic Art of Shakespeare,” Friesen’s “Altengland und William Shakespeare,” Hebler’s “Aufsätze über Shakespeare,” Tschischwitz’ “Shakespeare - Forschungen,” Benedix’s “Die Shakespearomanie,” Ludwig’s “Shakespeare-Studien,” Rötscher’s “Shakespeare in seinen höchsten Charaktergebilden,” Rümelin’s “Shakespeare - Studien,” Kreyssig’s “Shakspeare - Fragen,” Hertzberg’s “Shakespeare’s Dramatische Werke,” Vehse’s “Shakespeare als Protestant, Politiker, Psycholog, und Dichter,” Flathe’s “Shakspeare in seiner Wirklichkeit,” Delius’s “Der Mythus von W. Shakespeare,” Simrock’s “Die Quellen des Shakespeare,” Ten Brink’s Lectures, and the “Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft.” For further particulars as to the various editions, and as to the dates of the plays, etc., see Professor Hall Griffin’s Bibliography at the end of vol. xi. of Morley’s “English Writers.”
