ABSTRACT
Isaac Reed (1742-1807) was, like Ritson, a lawyer who worked his way up from humble beginnings, practising as a conveyancer at Staple Inn. A widely read historian of literature, he gave generous help to Johnson and John Nichols, associated with Walpole and Percy, and was a close friend of Farmer and Steevens. Of many works edited by him, the most celebrated are Biographica Dramatica (1782), Notitia Dramatica (a chronicle of English theatrical history from 1734 to 1785: uncompleted at his death, the MS is in the British Library), and Dodsley’s Old Plays (12 vols, 1780). Reed, who was of a retiring disposition and would not allow his name to
appear in any of his books, was asked by Steevens to take over this third edition of his and Johnson’s Shakespeare. Following Malone’s edition of 1790, Steevens assumed responsibility for the 1793 revision (No. 303), but after his death in 1800 he left Reed his corrected edition, which Reed brought out in 1803 in twenty-one volumes (the ‘first variorum’, as it is sometimes known), and which was reissued with minor changes in 1813. For studies of the copy-text for 1785 (a marked-up set of 1778, British Library shelf mark C. 117.e.3) see W.C.Woodson in Studies in Bibliography, 28 (1975), pp. 318-20, and 31 (1978), pp. 208-10, and with corrections by Arthur Sherbo, ibid., 32 (1979), pp. 241-6.
