Clement Mansfield Ingleby - Collier Shakespeare Controversy

Collier Shakespeare Controversy

In the 1850s documents discovered by John Payne Collier bearing on Elizabethan stage history in general and Shakespeare's life in particular fell under suspicion. Re-examination of several documents showed them to be out-and-out forgeries, forgeries so obvious it was difficult to see how Collier could have been deceived by them. One item of particular interest, the Perkins Folio, had never been examined by anybody besides Collier. It contained many corrections in what appeared to be a 16th century hand that Collier suggested might be based on stage tradition. Ingleby, along with Sir Frederick Madden, who put the resources of the British Museum on the task, were finally able to examine the Perkins Folio in detail. They discovered—as was the case with others of the forgeries—modern pencil-marks under the supposedly ancient writing. The handwriting of these appeared to be Collier's.

The conclusion was inescapable—Collier himself must have forged these documents. In 1859 Ingleby published a small volume entitled The Shakespeare Fabrications, setting these facts forth dispassionately. (An appendix to this volume dealing with the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries, however, was later repudiated by the author.) Collier denied the allegations, but Ingleby's A Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy closed the discussion, and Collier did not reply.