Isaac Reed

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For the American politician, see Isaac Reed (Maine).

Isaac Reed (January 1, 1742 - January 5, 1807), was an English Shakespearean editor.

The son of a baker, he was born in London. He was articled to a solicitor, and eventually set up as a conveyancer at Staple Inn, where he had a large practice. His first important work was the Biographia dramatica (2 vols., 1782), a set of biographies of dramatists and a descriptive dictionary of their plays. This book, which was an enlargement of David Erskine Baker's Companion to the Playhouse (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 manuscripts of Thomas Coxeter (1689-1747), an industrious antiquary who had collected much useful material.

Reed's Notitia dramatica (Addit. MSS. 253902, British Museum), supplementary to the Biographia, was never published. He revised Robert Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays (12 vols., 1780). He also re-edited Samuel Johnson and George Steevens's edition (1773) of Shakespeare. Reed's edition was published in ten volumes (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. After his death, his valuable library of theatrical literature was catalogued for sale as Bibliotheca Reediana (1807).

See John Nichols Lit. Anec. of the 18th Century (vol. ii., 1812); and Edward Dowden, Essays, Modern and Elizabethan.

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