Chapter 7 - American Editions

Summary

Tracks the history of Shakespeare publishing in the US in the period running through to the end of the nineteenth century. Most of the earliest editions were derivative and it is noted that genuinely new advances in editorial scholarship were hampered by the lack of availability of primary texts in America in the earliest decades of Shakespeare publishing there. As access to early editions improved, a distinctively American strand of Shakespeare editing emerged. The careers of notable American editors are detailed, with a particular focus on Henry Norman Hudson, William J. Rolfe, Richard Grant White and Horace Howard Furness. Furness's inauguration of a variorum series, continued by his son, and later taken up by the Modern Language Association, is registered as being of signal importance. The pioneering work of Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke is also discussed. By the early twentieth century a significant transfer of early Shakespeare editions from UK collections to US research libraries meant that America was finally in a position to lead the way in terms of Shakespeare editorial scholarship.