Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • Chapter 10 - The New Bibliography

  • from Part I - Text
  • Andrew Murphy, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book:
    Shakespeare in Print
    Published online:
    23 April 2021
    Print publication:
    13 May 2021, pp 258-290

  • Summary

    The New Bibliography represents one of the most important developments in the history of Shakespeare editing. Those associated with the movement – most especially W. W. Greg, R. B. McKerrow and A. W. Pollard – aimed to bring a scientific mindset to the business of examining, theorising about and editing early modern texts. Much of their early work provided significant breakthroughs in bibliographic knowledge. Their more speculative ideas – including the division of early single play texts into 'good' and 'bad' quartos; 'memorial reconstruction'; proposed differences between foul paper manuscripts and prompt books – have proved controversial in the long run, but have nevertheless, for the past century, served as the bedrock for techniques for editing early modern texts. The history of these ideas is mapped out here. The chapter concludes with an extended consideration of two projects spawned by the New Bibliography: the Oxford Shakespeare, which ultimately ran into the sand, despite repeated efforts to revive it, and the New Cambridge Shakespeare, which was brought successfully to completion by John Dover Wilson.