COLLIER, John Payne, Shakespearean critic: b. London, 11 Jan. 1789; d. Maidenhead, 17 Sept. 1883. He wrote many critical articles in periodicals, published in 1820 his 'Poetical Decameron,' and thenceforward continued his editions of poems and plays, notably those of the less-known Elizabethan writers. His best work, 'History of English Dramatic Poetry' appeared in 1831. He took great interest in and edited many publications for the Camden, Percy and Shakespeare societies, and completed in 1844 an eight-volume edition of Shakespeare. In 1852 he professed to have discovered, on the margins of a copy of the second folio Shakes peare, bought from a second-hand bookseller, manuscript notes and emendations written in a 17th century hand. When these notes and emendations were published they became the subject of eager discussion by the critics, the best of whom were not disposed to set a high value on them, and in 1859 an examination of the volume convinced the British Museum au thorities that the marginal notes were forgeries.
Collier published a weak and inconclusive reply, in which he maintained their genuineness, and thenceforward he maintained complete silence on the matter. He continued to produce edi tions of English writers, among them Spenser (1862), and also critical and autobiographical works. Of his later publications the next most important is 'An Old Man's Diary' (1872). Among his papers were found indisputable proofs of a long series of literary forgeries. As a consequence suspicion has rested on all his work, and has obscured the real services he indisputably did to English literature. For a list of Collier's forgeries and the bibliography on the controversy, consult Lee, 'Life of Shakespeare' (3d ed., London 1900) ; Warner, 'Catalogue of MSS. of Dulwich College' (ib. 1881), and Ingleby, C. M., 'Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy' (1861).