Horace Howard Furness

Horace Howard Furness

Horace Howard Furness ( November 2, 1833 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania - August 13, 1912 in Wallingford , Pennsylvania) was the most important American Shakespearean scholar of the 19th century.

life and work

He was the son of the Unitarian clergyman and abolitionist William Henry Furness (1802-1896) and the brother of the portrait painter William Henry Furness junior and the architect Frank Furness (1839-1912). In 1854 he graduated from Harvard University and then studied in Germany, including painting in Düsseldorf . After his return to the USA he was accepted into the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1859, but was no longer able to practice as a lawyer because of his increasing deafness. He married Helen Kate Rogers, the sister of Fairman Rogers . The couple had four children.

In 1860 he was accepted into the Shakespeare Society of Philadelphia, a lay organization devoted to the serious study of Shakespeare's works. Furness later described this as follows:

“Each member had an edition of the Variorum from 1821, which we assumed would contain the entire Shakespearian tradition for each piece. What had been added since that time was distributed in various editions and countless literary works. Collecting these scattered items was a real drag, but necessary if one wanted to avoid all work being in vain. "

As editor of the "New Variorum " (sometimes also called "Furness Variorum") he summarized all text variants and commentaries on the works of Shakespeare from a period of more than 300 years in a single edition. Furness worked on "his" Variorum for more than 40 years and completed the edition of 15 dramas. Together with his wife Helen Kate Furness (1837-1883) he published a concordance on Shakespeare's sonnets. A Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems (1874). His son Horace Howard Furness, Jr. (1865–1930) served as co-editor of the later volumes and continued his father's work after his death. He edited five more pieces.

Furness was a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania , chairman of the founding committee and long-time trustee (1880-1904) of their library. His brother Frank designed the library's stained glass windows and Furness himself chose Shakespeare quotes for them. He advised doctoral student Emily Jordan Folger , who with her husband Henry Clay Folger founded the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.

An 1890 review in Blackwood's Magazine gives an idea of ​​the esteem Furness has received from British critics:

“With the edition of The Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, America has presented the best and most complete edition of our great poet that has ever existed. Text, illustrations, comments and criticism leave nothing to be desired. The editor combined a diligence with the patience and diligence of the scholar who did not miss anything valuable that German, French and English wrote about Shakespeare. And just as little is to be underestimated the fact that he has an understanding of art and judgment, is familiar with the best of ancient and modern literature and knows how to apply all of this successfully. "

The Modern Language Association of America has continued Furness' work with the intention of reissuing all of Shakespeare's dramas as Variorum.

Honors

In 1880 Furness was made a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1897 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He has received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the University of Halle , the University of Pennsylvania , Columbia University and the University of Cambridge . In 1911 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

legacy

• The "Helen Kate Furness Free Library" in Wallingford, Pennsylvania (named after his wife) was built on the site of his former country house "Lindenshade".
• The Horace Howard Furness High School in South Philadelphia is named after his son.
• His son Horace Jr. bequeathed his father's Shakespeare collection to the University of Pennsylvania, both of which are honored by the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library.

New Variorum

Edited by Horace Howard Furness

• Romeo and Juliet (published 1871)
• Macbeth (1873)
• Hamlet vol. 1 (1877)
• Hamlet vol. 2 (1877)
• King Lear (1880)
• Othello (1886)
• Merchant of Venice (1888)
• As You Like It (1890)
• The Tempest (1892)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1895)
• The Winter's Tale (1898)
• Twelfth Night (1901)
• Much Ado About Nothing (1904)
• Love's Laboratories Lost (1904)
• Anthony and Cleopatra (1907)
• Richard III (1908)
• Cymbeline (1913) (published posthumously)

Editing by HH Furness, Jr.

• Julius Caesar (1913)
• Macbeth (revised)
• Merchant of Venice (revised)
• King John (1919)
• Coriolanus (1928)

Secondary literature

• Gibson, James M. The Philadelphia Shakespeare Story: Horace Howard Furness and the New Variorum Shakespeare (New York: AMS Press, 1990)
• Repplier, Agnes , "Horace Howard Furness," The Atlantic Monthly , November 1912.
• Williams, Talcott, "Appreciations of Horace Howard Furness: Our Great Shakespeare Critic," The Century Magazine , November 1912.

Web links

Commons : Horace Howard Furness  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• In the Horace Howard Furness collection on the Great Central Fair , the Furness estate has been donated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and made available for scientific purposes.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Horace Howard Furness,” Harvard Memorial Biographies , Volume 1.
2. ^ Museum Kunstpalast : Artists from the Düsseldorf School of Painting (selection, as of November 2016, PDF )
3. ↑ What is meant is the so-called “Third Variorum”, published by James Boswell in 1821. This is the expanded edition of the “First Variorum”, published by Isaac Reed in 1803.
4. ↑ Horace Howard Furness, “How did you become a Shakespeare Student?” Shakespeariana , vol. 5 (October 1888), pp. 439-40.
5. ↑ After a restoration, the Fisher Fine Arts Library was reopened in 1991.
6. ^ Joseph Quincy Adams and Paul Cret, The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington (Amherst College, 1933).
7. ↑ Quoted in "Horace Howard Furness," Dictionary of Literary Biography (Thomson Gale, 2005-06)
8. ↑ New Variorum continues ...
9. ^ American Philosophical Society Member History
10. ^ Horace Howard Furness from Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
11. ↑ Members: Horace H. Furness Jr. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 29, 2019 . 
12. ^ Helen Kate Furness Free Library
13. ^ Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library
14. ↑ Julius Caesar New Variorum text ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.