Alexander Dyce, 1798-1869. Howard Staunton, 1810-1874. The Cambridge edition, 1863-6.
Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as Steevens in Elizabethan literature, and especially in the drama of the period, and his edition of Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was first published in 1857, has many new and valuable illustrative notes and a few good textual emendations, as well as a useful glossary; but Dyce’s annotations are not always adequate, and often tantalise the reader by their brevity. Howard Staunton’s
edition first appeared in three volumes between 1868 and 1870. He also was well read in contemporary literature and was an acute textual critic. His introductions bring together much interesting stage history. Nikolaus Delius’s edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven volumes between 1854 and 1861. Delius’s text is formed on sound critical principles and is to be trusted thoroughly. A fifth edition in two volumes appeared in 1882. The Cambridge edition, which first appeared in nine volumes between 1863 and 1866, exhaustively notes the textual variations of all preceding editions, and supplies the best and fullest apparatus criticus. (Of new editions, one dated 1887 is also in nine volumes, and another, dated 1893, in forty volumes.)