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STEEVENS, GEORGE (1736-1800)

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 869 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STEEVENS, See also:GEORGE (1736-1800) , See also:English Shakespearian commentator, was See also:born at See also:Poplar on the loth of May 1736, the son of an See also:East See also:India See also:captain, afterwards a director of the See also:company. He was educated at See also:Eton and at See also:King's See also:College, See also:Cambridge, where he resided from 1753 to 1756. Leaving the university without a degree, he settled in See also:chambers in the See also:Temple, removing later to a See also:house on See also:Hampstead See also:Heath, where he collected a valuable library, See also:rich in Elizabethan literature. He also accumulated a large collection of See also:Hogarth prints, and his notes on the subject were incorporated in See also:John See also:Nichols's Genuine See also:Works of Hogarth. He walked from Hampstead to See also:London every See also:morning before seven o'See also:clock, discussed Shakespearian questions with his friend, See also:Isaac See also:Reed, and, after making his daily See also:round of the booksellers' shops, returned to Hampstead. He began his labours as a Shakespearian editor with reprints of the See also:quarto See also:editions of See also:Shakespeare's plays, entitled Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare . . . (1766). Dr See also:Johnson was impressed by the value of this See also:work, and suggested that Steevens should prepare a See also:complete edition of Shakespeare. The result, known as Johnson's and Steevens's edition, was The Works of Shakespeare with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators (10 vols., 1773), Johnson's contributions to which were very slight. This See also:early See also:attempt at a variorum edition was revised and reprinted in 1778, and further edited in 1785 by Isaac Reed; but in 1793 Steevens, who had asserted that he was now a " See also:dowager-editor," was persuaded by, his See also:jealousy of See also:Edmund See also:Malone to resume his labours. The definitive result of his researches was embodied in an edition of fifteen volumes.

He made changes in the See also:

text sometimes apparently with the See also:sole See also:object of showing how much abler he was as an emendator than Malone, but his wide knowledge of Elizabethan literature stood him in See also:good See also:stead, and subsequent editors have gone to his pages for parallel passages from contemporary authors. His deficiencies from the point of view of purely See also:literary See also:criticism are apparent from the fact that he excluded Shakespeare's sonnets and poems because, he wrote, " the strongest See also:act of See also:parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service." In the twenty years between 1773 and 1793 he was less harmlessly engaged in criticizing his See also:fellows and playing malicious See also:practical jokes on them. Dr Johnson:; who was one of his stanchest See also:friends, said he had come to live the See also:life of an outlaw, but he was generous and to a small circle of friends See also:civil and See also:kind. He was one of the foremost in exposing the See also:Chatterton-See also:Rowley and the See also:Ireland forgeries. He wrote an entirely fictitious See also:account of the See also:Java See also:upas See also:tree, derived from an imaginary Dutch traveller, which imposed on See also:Erasmus See also:Darwin, and he hoaxed the Society of Antiquaries with the tombstone of See also:Hardicanute, supposed to have been dug up in See also:Kennington, but really engraved with an Anglo-Saxon inscription of his own invention. He died at Hampstead on the 22nd of See also:January 1800. A See also:monument to his memory by See also:Flaxman, with an inscription commemorating his Shakespearian labours, was erected in Poplar See also:Chapel. The See also:sale See also:catalogue of his valuable library is in the See also:British Museum. Steevens's Shakespeare was re-issued by Isaac Reed in 1803, in 21 volumes, with additional notes See also:left by Steevens. This, which is known as the " first variorum " edition, was reprinted in 1813. Steevens's notes are also incorporated in the edition of 1821, begun by Edmund Malone and completed by See also:James See also:Boswell the younger.

End of Article: STEEVENS, GEORGE (1736-1800)

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