ISAAC

See also:

• REED
• REED, ANDREW (1787-1862)
• ISAAC REED (1742—1807)
• REED, JOSEPH (1741—1785)
• REED, THOMAS BRACKETT (1839—1902)

REED (1742—1807)  , English Shakespearian editor, son of a baker, was born on New Year's Day, 1742, in London . He was articled to a solicitor, and eventually set up as a conveyancer at Staple Inn, where he had a considerable practice . His first important work was the Biographia dramatica (2 vols., 1782), consisting of biographies of the dramatists and a descriptive dictionary of their plays . This book, which was an enlargement of David Erskine Baker's Companion to the Play-house (2 vols., 1764), was re-edited (3 vols.) by Stephen Jones in 1811, and is a valuable authority . The original work by Baker had been based on Gerard Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), Giles Jacob's Poetical Register (1719), Thomas Whincop's " List of all the Dramatic Authors " (printed with his tragedy of Scanderbeg, 1747) and the MSS. of Thomas Coxeter (1689-1747), an industrious antiquary who had collected much useful material . Reed's Notitia dramatica (Addit . MSS . 25390-2, British Museum), supplementary to the Biographia, was never published . He revised Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays (12 vols., 1780) . He also re-edited Johnson and Steevens's edition (1773) of Shakespeare . Reed's edition was published in ro vols . (1785), and he gave great assistance to Steevens in his edition (1793) .

He was Steevens's

literary executor, and in 1803 published another edition (21 vols.) based on Steevens's later collections . This, which is known as the first variorum, was re-issued ten years later . He died on the 5th of January 1807 . His valuable library of theatrical literature was catalogued for sale as Bibliotheca Reediana (1807) . See John Nichol's Lit . Anec. of the z8th Century (vol. ii., 1812) ; and Edward Dowden, Essays, Modern and Elizabethan .