John Payne Collier (January 11, 1789 - September 17, 1883), English Shakespearian critic, was born in London. January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... 1883 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A critic (derived from the ancient Greek word krites meaning a judge) is a person who offers a value judgement or an interpretation. ... London (see also different names) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ...

His father, John Dyer Collier (1762-1825), was a successful journalist, and his connection with the press obtained for his son a position on the Morning Chronicle as leader writer, dramatic critic and reporter, which continued till 1847; he was also for some time a reporter for The Times. He was summoned before the House of Commons in 1819 for giving an incorrect report of a speech by Joseph Hume. He entered the Middle Temple in 1811, but was not called to the bar until 1829. The delay was partly due to his indiscretion in publishing the Criticisms on the Bar (1819) by "Amicus Curiae." The masthead of The Times The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom. ... The House of Commons is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the House of Lords. ... Joseph Hume (January 22, 1777 - February 20, 1855) was a British doctor and politician, born in Montrose, Scotland. ... The Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court around the Royal Courts of Justice in London. ... 1811 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

His leisure was given to the study of Shakespeare and the early English drama. After some minor publications he produced in 1825-1827 a new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, and in 1833 a supplementary volume entitled Five Old Plays. In 1831 appeared his History of English Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, a badly arranged, but valuable work. It obtained for him the post of librarian to the duke of Devonshire, and, subsequently, access to the chief collections of early English literature throughout the kingdom, especially to the treasures of Bridgwater House. Robert Dodsley (1703 - September 23, 1764) was an English bookseller and miscellaneous writer. ... 1831 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

These opportunities were unhappily misused to effect a series of literary fabrications, which may be charitably, and perhaps not unjustly, attributed to literary monomania, but of which it is difficult to speak with patience, so completely did they for a long time bewilder the chronology of Shakespeare's writings, and such suspicion have they thrown upon manuscript evidence in general. After New Facts, New Particulars and Further Particulars respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster, Collier produced (1852) the famous Perkins Folio, a copy of the second folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page. On this book were numerous manuscript emendations of Shakespeare said by Collier to be from the hand of "an old corrector." He published these corrections as Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare (1852), and boldly incorporated them in his edition (1853) of Shakespeare. In psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) is a type of paranoia in which the patient has only one idea or type of ideas. ...

Their authenticity was disputed by SW Singer in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853) and by EA Brae in Literary Cookery (1855) on internal evidence; and when in 1859 the folio was submitted by its owner, the duke of Devonshire, to experts at the British Museum, the emendations were incontestably proved to be forgeries of modern date. Collier was exposed by Mr Nicholas Hamilton in his Inquiry (1860). The point whether he was deceiver or deceived was left undecided, but the falsifications of which he was unquestionably guilty among the manuscripts at Dulwich College have left little doubt respecting it. He had produced the Memoirs of Edward Alleyn for the Shakespeare Society in 1841. He followed up this volume with the Alleyn Papers (1843) and the Diary of P Henslowe (1845). The main entrance to the British Museum The British Museum is one of the worlds largest and most important museums of ancient history. ... Dulwich College gates Dulwich College is an independent, fee-paying school, called a public school in the UK, in Dulwich, south-east London, England. ...

He forged the name of Shakespeare in a genuine letter at Dulwich, and the spurious entries in Alleyn's Diary were proved to be by Collier's hand when the sale of his library in 1884 gave access to a transcript he had made of the Diary with interlineations corresponding with the Dulwich forgeries. No statement of his can be accepted without verification, and no manuscript he has handled without careful examination, but he did much useful work. He compiled a valuable Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (1865); he reprinted a great number of early English tracts of extreme rarity, and rendered good service to the numerous antiquarian societies with which he was connected, especially in the editions he produced for the Camden Society and the Percy Society. The Camden Society, named after the early English historian William Camden, was founded in 1838 in London to print early historical and literary materials, both unpublished manuscripts and new editions of rare printed books. ...

His Old Man's Diary (1871-1872) is an interesting record, though even here the taint of fabrication is not absent. Unfortunately what he did amiss is more striking to the imagination than what he did aright, and he will be chiefly remembered by it. He died at Maidenhead, where he had long resided, on the 17th of September 1883. Maidenhead is a town in Berkshire, England, and has a population of around 60,000. ...

For an account of the discussion raised by Collier's emendations see CM Ingleby, Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy (1861).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. A more recent study is A. Freeman and J.I. Freeman, John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press, 2004). (Redirected from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica) The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...