Preface to This Edition
Begun in the winter of 1874, a first instalment of “A Study of Shakespeare” appeared in the Fortnightly Review for May 1875, and a second in the number for June 1876, but the completed work was not issued in book form until June 1880. In a letter to me (January 31, 1875), Swinburne said:
“I am now at work on my long-designed essay or study on the metrical progress or development of Shakespeare, as traceable by ear and not by finger, and the general changes of tone and stages of mind expressed or involved in this change or progress of style.”
The book was produced at the moment when controversy with regard to the internal evidence of composition in the writings attributed to Shakespeare was raging high, and the amusing appendices were added at the last moment that they might infuriate the pedants of the New Shakespeare Society. They amply fulfilled that amiable purpose.
EDMUND GOSSE
September 1918