John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century (review)

The Freemans' magisterial book belongs in every academic library. Their "bio-bibliography" of John Payne Collier (1789–1883) is a fascinating mystery story and a thorough reference tool. From the start of a long career, Collier had access to and printed rare documents of early modern English literature, unavailable to others, through his connections to Dulwich College and the library of the duke of Devonshire. A bibliophile, a tireless editor, and a prolific writer for journals such as Notes & Queries and Athenaeum, Collier belonged to almost all the important societies of his day, including the Shakespeare Society, for which he produced many reprints. Name any man of letters from the Romantic through the Victorian period: Collier knew him, corresponded with him, worked with him, or critiqued him. Lionized by many, he was the center of a midcentury crisis of charge and denial—the former fueled by zeal or crass ambition, the latter by affection for Collier or gentlemanly abhorrence of controversy. Through their concentration on Collier, the Freemans bring to life virtually every nineteenth-century literary and public figure and introduce scholars from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. They illuminate important issues in early modern English literature, bibliography, historical biography, documentary evidence, antiquarianism, journalism, the editing industry, the role of scholarly societies and private libraries in book production and distribution, and more.

In Shakespeare circles, Collier is best known, perhaps, for a unique resource—his notes as a member of the audience at Coleridge's 1811–12 lectures—and for manuscript emendations in a Second Folio copy of Shakespeare's works, announced in 1852 (the Perkins folio). The two—related because Collier published the Coleridge notes along with a list of the Perkins emendations in 1856—are emblematic of his career: a valuable resource for literary criticism exists alongside a fake that muddied Shakespearean criticism for years. The great questions about Collier's lifetime work are "What are his trustworthy achievements?" and "Why did he, a respected and even revered scholar, resort to criminal fabrication?" The Freemans answer the first question thoroughly and suggest possible answers to the second. Their primary goal is to separate Collier's formidable genuine work from his forgeries and to sort what is valuable in the genuine work from what is superficial or flawed. In the process they tell a compelling story, clearly organized and scrupulously documented.

Faced with Collier's many falsifications of data and outright forgeries and fabrications, some literary historians have cast doubt on his entire oeuvre. Doing so would deny a large body of real achievement, among which are his reprints of many early modern works of literary and popular culture and much documentary evidence from the early modern period. All of these would have been unavailable to the great majority of his contemporaries if Collier had not published them. The Freemans do not claim that they have identified all the forgeries and are careful to note what is still in doubt. But they have probably gone as far as anyone can go until any missing originals are uncovered. By identifying almost all that is false, they have clarified what may be trusted.

Theirs is a prodigious work of impeccable scholarship, persuasive in its completeness and measured tone. They have examined every available document, searched all the relevant archives, collated editions, and read scholarly prefaces, articles, and books. Contemporaries sometimes faulted Collier for not revealing the location of the documents he uncovered; the Freemans list by location every rarity they have examined (see "Manuscript Sources for the Life of Collier"; throughout the book, they provide relevant shelf numbers or other identification for rare resources). The "Works Cited" and index are comprehensive and generous. Their substantial, informative, and never pedantic or gratuitous notes are, helpfully, at the bottom of the page.

Their "Bibliography of Works by John Payne Collier" lists several hundred items. The first and...