Edmond Malone

Edmond ( Edmund ) Malone ( born October 4, 1741 Dublin, † April 25, 1812 in London) was an Irish literary scholar and author who mainly dealt with the life and work of William Shakespeare.

Life

Malone, whose father was a barrister and member of the Irish House of Commons, studied at Trinity College Dublin and was appointed after graduating in 1767 to become a lawyer.

The inheritance after the death of his father in 1774 enabled him to travel to London, where he joined quickly literary and artistic circles. There he met figures such as Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, he instrumental in the publication of Johnson's biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson ( 1791), supported. During this time, his portrait of the painter Joshua Reynolds, which is now on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London was born. He was one of the executors of Reynolds and was posthumously in 1798 a collection of his works with memoir out.

His other friends of that time were Horace Walpole, Edmund Burke, George Canning and especially James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont and George Steevens, who encouraged him to study the life and work of William Shakespeare. The resulting treatise Attempt to Ascertain the Order in Which the Plays of Shakespeare were written ( 1778) was widely recognized. 1780 was followed by two supplementary volumes to the published by Steevens edition of Shakespeare, the partial descriptions of the world of theater at the time of Elizabeth I, as well as texts in question contained worthier stage works. To this end, appeared in 1783 Appendixband. In 1782 he published the first a treatise in which he doubted the genuineness of the discovered by Thomas Chatterton Rowley Poems.

To modify some of his notes for 1785 published ten-volume edition of Shakespeare by Isaac Reed, who was in contrast to George Steevens, His refusal led to a dispute between Malone and his friend Steevens.

The next annual Malone devoted himself to his own, based on the output of Lewis Theobald, and in 1790 published elfbändigen edition of Shakespeare, from the particular his essays on the history of theater, the biography of Shakespeare and his attack on the authenticity of the three parts of Henry VI. are literarily valuable. The issue was taken up: while they praised Burke and Walpole saw her critical, it was panned by John Ritson. Malone's edition begot tireless research and a decent respect for previous editions. In addition, he was also involved in the Neubefassung with then partly forgotten Shakespeare's works, such as with the sonnets.

1796 appeared another essay in which he denounced as one of the first committed by William Henry Ireland Shakespeare forgeries. His extensive published 1801 edition of the works of John Dryden was another testimony of his diligent, accurate and scholarly work. 1801 awarded him the University of Dublin, a Doctor of Laws ( LL.D. ).

At the time of his death he was working on a new edition of Shakespeare's works. The passed from him to James Boswell son of the same manuscript and extensive material has been released from this in 1821 under the title The Variorum Shakespeare in 21 volumes. His own book collection was bequeathed by his older brother, Lord Sunderlin, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, which many of his manuscripts, notes, and literary correspondence acquired later. The British Museum is finally in possession of some of his letters and provided him with annotations dictionary of Samuel Johnson.

In his honor, the Malone Society was founded in 1907.