Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish barrister, Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he frequented literary and artistic circles. He regularly visited Samuel Johnson and was of great assistance to James Boswell in revising and proofreading his Life, four of the later editions of which he annotated. He was friendly with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and sat for a portrait now in the National Portrait Gallery.<!-- It was in the National Gallery in 1911; is it still? -->
He was one of Reynolds' executors, and published a posthumous collection of his works (1798) with a memoir. Horace Walpole, Edmund Burke, George Canning, Oliver Goldsmith, Lord Charlemont, and, at first, George Steevens, were among Malone's friends. Encouraged by Charlemont and Steevens, he devoted himself to the study of Shakespearean chronology, and the results of his "An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays Attributed to Shakspeare Were Written" (1778), which finally made it conceivable to try to patch together a biography of Shakespeare through the plays themselves, are still largely accepted.
This was followed in 1780 by two supplementary volumes to Steevens's version of Dr Johnson's Shakespeare, partly consisting of observations on the history of the Elizabethan stage, and of the text of doubtful plays; and this again, in 1783, by an appendix volume. His refusal to alter some of his notes to Isaac Reed's edition of 1785, which disagreed with Steevens's, resulted in a quarrel with the latter.
In 1815 Lord Sunderlin announced his intention to donate part of his late brother's library to the Bodleian once the new edition of Malone's Shakespeare (the Variorum Shakespeare) was complete. He reserved c. 800 volumes for the Library, while the rest was sold in 1818 at Sotheby's. In 1821 the collection was received by the Bodleian.
The early editions of Shakespeare in the collection were described by Malone in 1801:
The influence of the Malone collection from its 1821 receipt in the Bodleian is shown by both the donations to and purchases of the Library in the years following: in 1833 Thomas Caldecott donated his poems of Shakespeare, and at the Heber sale in 1834, and afterward, further gaps in the collection were filled. In 1835 B. H. Bright gave Malone's copy of Anthony Wood's Athenae to the Bodleian, in 1836 the Bodleian bought papers relating to Pope, as well as, in 1838, collections for the last edition of Malone's Shakespeare and for the illustration of ancient manners, 76 volumes of eighteenth-century pamphlets, and part of his literary correspondence. In 1851 Malone's letters from Thomas Percy were acquired, in 1858 his Oxford research notes, in 1864 letters from Samuel Johnson, Mrs Siddons, and others, and in 1878 further correspondence, papers, and books. The mention of this purchase in the Athenaeum encouraged Mr. L. Sharpe of the Guildhall Library to present the Bodleian with Malone's letters to his grandfather. In 1881, 76 volumes of pamphlets was also purchased by the Library.
Works
- 1778 – "An Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays Attributed to Shakspeare Were Written", in The Plays of William Shakespeare in Ten Volumes, Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, eds. (1778), 2nd ed., vol I, pp. 269–346.
- 1780 – Supplement to Johnson and Steevens's edition of Shakespeare's Plays.
- 1782 – Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley
- 1787 – A Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI.
- 1790 – The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare.
- 1792 – A Letter to the Rev. Richard Farmer; Relative to the Edition of Shakspeare, published in MDCCXC, and some late criticisms on that work. (This is the date of the 2nd edition.)
- 1796 – An inquiry into the authenticity of certain miscellaneous papers and legal instruments published 24 Dec MDCCXCV and attributed to Shakspeare, Queen Elizabeth and Henry, Earl of Southampton.
- 1800 – The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected: With Notes and Illustrations; an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents. Four volumes.
- 1801 – The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knight.
- 1809 – Parliamentary Logick, the writings of William Gerard Hamilton with notes on the Corn Laws by Samuel Johnson.
- 1809 – An account of the incidents from which the title and part of the story of Shakspeare's Tempest were derived; and its true date ascertained.
- 1821 – Life of Shakespeare. In Works of Shakespeare (1821), Volume II.
The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare
The years from 1783 to 1790 were devoted to Malone's own edition of Shakespeare in multiple volumes, of which his essays on the history of the stage, his biography of Shakespeare, and his attack on the genuineness of the three parts of Henry VI, were especially valuable. His editorial work was lauded by Burke, criticised by Walpole and damned by Joseph Ritson. It certainly showed indefatigable research and proper respect for the text of the earlier editions.
The Ireland forgeries
Malone published a denial of the claim to antiquity of the Rowley poems produced by Thomas Chatterton, and in this (1782) as in his branding (1796) of the Ireland manuscripts as forgeries, he was among the first to guess and state the truth. His elaborate edition of John Dryden's works (1800), with a memoir, was another monument to his industry, accuracy and scholarly care. In 1801 he received an LL.D. from Trinity College Dublin.
Malone–Boswell Shakespeare
At the time of his death, Malone was at work on a new octavo edition of Shakespeare, and he left his material to James Boswell the younger; the result was the edition of 1821 generally known as the Third Variorum edition in twenty-one volumes. Lord Sunderlin (1738–1816), his elder brother and executor, presented the larger part of Malone's book collection, including dramatic varieties, to the Bodleian Library, which subsequently bought many of his manuscript notes and his literary correspondence. The British Museum also owns some of his letters and his annotated copy of Johnson's Dictionary.
A memoir of Malone by James Boswell is included in the prolegomena to the edition of 1821.
Reputation and legacy
The Malone Society, devoted to the study of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English drama, was named after him.
See also
- Shakespeare's editors