George Steevens

• 1. Poplar Birth And Cambridge Years

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  George Steevens entered the world at Poplar on the 10th of May 1736. His father served as a captain and later became a director of the East India Company. This family background placed him within the commercial elite of eighteenth-century London. He attended Eton College before moving to King's College, Cambridge in 1753. The university records show he remained there until 1756 without taking a degree. Leaving school empty-handed did not stop his scholarly ambitions. He settled into chambers at the Inner Temple shortly after leaving Cambridge. Later years found him living in a house on Hampstead Heath where he built a significant library.

• 2. Shakespearean Editorial Partnerships

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  Steevens began editing Shakespeare with reprints of quarto editions published in 1766 under the title Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare. Samuel Johnson read these early works and felt impressed by their quality. Johnson suggested that Steevens prepare a complete edition of the Bard's plays. The resulting collaboration produced The Plays of Shakespeare with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators between 1773 and 1785. This ten-volume set included very slight contributions from Johnson himself. Isaac Reed edited the work further in 1785 after Steevens had stepped back. The definitive fifteen-volume edition emerged from Steevens' researches in 1793. His wide knowledge of Elizabethan literature provided parallel passages for future editors. He excluded Shakespeare's sonnets and poems because he believed no act of parliament could force readers to study them.

• 3. The Malone Feud And Editorial Rivalry

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  Edmond Malone became the primary rival who challenged Steevens' editorial authority during the 1790s. Steevens claimed he was now a dowager-editor yet resumed the task due to jealousy of Malone. He made changes in the text sometimes with the sole object of showing how abler he was as an emendator than Malone. Their professional rivalry centered on textual emendation and scholarly reputation. Steevens' deficiencies from the point of view of purely literary criticism remain apparent today. Despite these flaws, subsequent editors have gone to his pages for parallel passages from contemporary authors. The feud lasted throughout the twenty years between 1773 and 1793 when Steevens engaged in criticizing his fellows.

• 4. Literary Hoaxes And Fabricated Artifacts

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  Steevens played malicious practical jokes on contemporaries like Erasmus Darwin and the Society of Antiquaries. He wrote an entirely fictitious account of the Java upas tree derived from an imaginary Dutch traveller. This fabrication imposed itself upon Erasmus Darwin who accepted it as fact. He hoaxed the Society of Antiquaries with the tombstone of Hardicanute dug up in Kennington. The stone bore an Anglo-Saxon inscription of his own invention rather than historical truth. Dr Johnson said Steevens had come to live the life of an outlaw despite being generous to friends. After Johnson's death in December 1784 Steevens sent anonymous items to the Public Advertiser promoting James Boswell. These letters aimed mainly to vex Sir John Hawkins the official biographer. He was one of the foremost figures exposing the Chatterton-Rowley and Ireland forgeries.