A biography of the 18th century British textual editor Lewis Theobold that asserts that the basic principles of critical editing in English were derived from Theobold's adaptation of the method employed by Bentley in the classics.

Since his death in 1744, Theobald's reputation as a scholar and critic has been determined chiefly by Pope's Dunciad Variorum (1729) and Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare (1765). This study, while putting the hostile views of Pope and Johnson into their intellectual and social contexts,reassesses Theobald's aims and achievements from the perspective of twentieth-century textual scholarship: his concerns with Elizabethan philology, palaeography, and bibliography, which were usually ignored or ridiculed in his own time, are seen to be distinctly modern. At the same time, attentionis paid to his critical understanding of Shakespeare. The result is a radical alteration of our view of him: instead of appearing a contemptible dunce, Theobald takes his place as the pioneer of techniques of modern literary scholarship whose critical acumen still illuminates our understanding ofShakespeare today.

Jonathan Brody Kramnick's book examines the formation of the English canon over the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century. Kramnick details how the idea of literary tradition emerged out of a prolonged engagement with the institutions of cultural modernity, from the public sphere and national identity to capitalism and the print market. Looking at a wide variety of eighteenth-century critical writing, he analyses the tensions that inhabited the categories of national literature and public culture at the moment of their emergence.

Reading Readings brings together essays by eighteen critics and textual scholars on texts that play a crucially informative role in the history of Shakespeare reception: the eighteenth-century editions. These texts tell, in extraordinary detail, the response of the age that granted Shakespeare his canonical status. They show, too, the development of a new range of critical and bibliographical practices, and display the workings of influential eighteenth-century cultural and market forces.

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects. The Collected Critical Heritage set will be available as a set of 68 volumes and the series will also be available in mini sets selected by period (in slipcase boxes) and as individual volumes.

This collection of essays centres on Double Falsehood, Lewis Theobald’s 1727 adaptation of the “lost” play of Cardenio, possibly co-authored by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. In a departure from most scholarship to date, the contributors fold Double Falsehood back into the milieu for which it was created rather than searching for traces of Shakespeare in the text. Robert D. Hume’s knowledge of theatre history permits a fresh take on the forgery question as well as the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Diana Solomon’s understanding of eighteenth-century rape culture and Jean I. Marsden’s command of contemporary adaptation practices both emphasise the play’s immediate social and theatrical contexts. And, finally, Deborah C. Payne’s familiarity with the eighteenth-century stage allows for a reconsideration of Double Falsehood as integral to a debate between Theobald, Alexander Pope, and John Gay over the future of the English drama.

Includes list of members, v. 1, 3-