Horace Howard Furness (November 2, 1833 – August 13, 1912) was an American
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
an scholar of the 19th century.
Life and career
Horace Furness was the son of the
Unitarian minister and abolitionist
William Henry Furness
William Henry Furness (April 20, 1802 – January 30, 1896) was an American clergyman, theologian, Transcendentalist, abolitionist, and reformer.
Biography
Furness was born in Boston, where he attended the Boston Latin School and developed a lif ...
(1802–1896), and brother of the architect
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...
(1839–1912). He graduated from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1854, embarked on a journey to Europe with
Atherton Blight
Atherton Blight (November 10, 1834 – November 4, 1909) was a Philadelphia lawyer, businessperson, author, diarist, and philanthropist who traveled extensively in the middle of the 19th century to Europe and the Middle East. Blight was also a fou ...
, and then studied in Germany. After returning to the United States, he was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar in 1858, but his growing deafness interfered with the practice of law.
In 1860, he joined the Shakspere Society of Philadelphia, an amateur study group that took its scholarship seriously. As he later wrote:
Every member had a copy of the Variorum of 1821, which we fondly believed had gathered under each play all Shakespearian lore worth preserving down to that date. What had been added since that year was scattered in many different editions, and in numberless volumes dispersed over the whole domain of literature. To gather these stray items of criticism was real toil, real but necessary if we did not wish our labour over the text to be in vain.
As editor of the "New
Variorum
A variorum, short for ''(editio) cum notis variorum'', is a work that collates all known variants of a text. It is a work of textual criticism, whereby all variations and emendations are set side by side so that a reader can track how textual deci ...
" editions of Shakespeare—also called the "Furness Variorum"—he collected in a single source 300 years of references, antecedent works, influences and commentaries. He devoted more than forty years to the series, completing the annotation of sixteen plays. His son, Horace Howard Furness, Jr. (1865–1930), joined as co-editor of the Variorum's later volumes, and continued the project after the father's death, annotating three additional plays and revising two others.
Nowhere, perhaps, has more labor been devoted to the study of the works of the poet than that given by Mr. H. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, to the preparation of the new Variorum edition. — Sir Sidney Lee
He was a lecturer at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, a long-serving trustee (1880–1904), and chairman of the building committee for its library. Designed by his brother Frank, Horace selected the Shakepearean quotes for the 1891 building's leaded glass windows. He was the advisor for doctoral student
Emily Jordan Folger
Emily Jordan Folger (May 15, 1858 – February 21, 1936), was the wife of Henry Clay Folger and the co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library. During her husband's lifetime, she assisted him in building the world's largest collection of Shakesp ...
who, with her husband
Henry Clay Folger
Henry Clay Folger Jr. (June 18, 1857 – June 11, 1930) was president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, a collector of Shakespeareana, and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Early life
Henry Clay Folger Jr. was born in New ...
, would co-found the
Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare material ...
in Washington, DC.
An 1890 review in ''
Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
'' may indicate the esteem in which British critics held Furness's scholarship:
In what is called 'The Variorum Edition of Shakespeare,' America has the honor of having produced the very best and most complete edition, so far as it has gone, of our great national poet. For text, illustration (happily, not pictorial), commentary and criticism, it leaves nothing to be desired. The editor combines with the patience and accuracy of the textural scholar, an industry which has overlooked nothing of value that has been written about Shakespeare by the best German and French, as well as English commentators and critics; and what is of no less moment he possesses in himself a rare delicacy of literary appreciation and breadth of judgment, disciplined by familiarity with all that is best in the literature of antiquity as well as of modern times, which he brings to bear on his notes with great effect.
New Variorum
Volumes edited by Horace Howard Furness
These volumes went through a number of reprints: the external links connect to the last online edition available.
''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''(1891, copyright 1890)
''The Tempest''(1892)
''A Midsommer Nights Dreame''(1895)
''The Winter's Tale''(1898)
''Twelfth Night''(1901)
''Much Ado About Nothing''(1904)
''Love's Labors Lost''(1904)
''Anthony and Cleopatra''(1907)
''Richard III''(1908)
''Cymbeline''(1913) (published posthumously)
Volumes edited by H. H. Furness, Jr.
''Julius Caesar''(Google books preview only) (1913)
''Macbeth'' (revised)(1903, 2nd ed. 1915)
*''Merchant of Venice'' (revised) (1916)
''King John''(1919)
*''Coriolanus'' (1928)
The Modern Language Association of America continues the "New Variorum" project with the goal of definitively annotating all 38 of Shakespeare's plays.
Other works
''F. R.''(1903). Philadelphia: privately printed. (A memorial of brother-in-law
Fairman Rogers, signed H. H. F.)
* &nbs
Volume 1Volume 2*
*
''Records of a lifelong friendship, 1807-1882: Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Henry Furness''(1910), edited by H. H. F. (Horace Howard Furness). Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin
Honors
Furness was elected to membership in the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
on April 16, 1880. He was the recipient of honorary degrees from Harvard University,
University of Halle
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...
,
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. He was elected a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
in 1905.
Personal
![Furness Helen Kate, 1880](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Furness_Helen_Kate%2C_1880.jpg)
In 1860 Furness married Helen Kate Rogers (1837–1883), heir to an ironmaking fortune and sister of University of Pennsylvania instructor
Fairman Rogers. She compiled a
concordance
Concordance may refer to:
* Agreement (linguistics), a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase
* Bible concordance, an alphabetical listing of terms in the Bible
* Concordant coastline, in geology, where beds, or la ...
to Shakespeare's poems, published in 1874. They had four children:
*
Walter Rogers Furness (1861–February 7, 1914), an architect, who in 1896 became a partner in the firm of his uncle,
Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...
. He built
Furness Cottage at the
Jekyll Island Club
The Jekyll Island Club was a private club on Jekyll Island, on Georgia's Atlantic coast. It was founded in 1886 when members of an incorporated hunting and recreational club purchased the island for $125,000 (about $3.1 million in 2017) from John E ...
, Georgia, where his family vacationed from 1889 to 1895. He was permanently blinded in one eye in 1898, after a ball hit him during a game of
racquets. From then on his life became worse and worse, descending into raging alcoholism. His wife, Helen Key Bullitt, died at age 47 in January 1914, and he died a month later at age 53, following a heart attack.
* Horace Howard Furness Jr. (1865–1930), who continued his father's work on the New Variorum project. Author of a play
''The Gloss of Youth : an imaginary episode in the lives of William Shakespeare and John Fletcher''(1920).
*
William Henry Furness III, (1866-1920), an explorer and ethnologist. One of the University of Pennsylvania medical students depicted in
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
's painting
The Agnew Clinic (1889). Undertook anthropological expeditions to the South Pacific with
Hiram M. Hiller, Jr.
Hiram Milliken Hiller Jr. (March 8, 1867 – August 8, 1921) was an American physician, medical missionary, explorer, and ethnographer. He traveled in Oceania and in South, Southeast, and East Asia, returning with archeological, cultural, zoolo ...
and Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., and wrote books and articles about
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
and
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
. Died unmarried.
*
Caroline Augusta Furness (1873-1909), also an ethnologist, she married University of Pennsylvania instructor
Horace Jayne
Horace Fort Jayne (5 March 1859, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 9 July 1913, Wallingford, Pennsylvania) was an American zoölogist and educator.
Biography
He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania ( A.B., 1879; M.D., 1882), and studied ...
, and died from a heart attack at age 35 in 1909. Their children were Kate Furness Jayne and
Horace H. F. Jayne, an art historian and museum director.
Horace and Kate Furness inherited her family's Philadelphia city house, at the SW corner of Locust Street & West Washington Square. Frank Furness altered the house in 1873, and designed the 1909 office building that replaced it. He also designed their country house, "
Lindenshade" (c. 1873, demolished 1940) and its many expansions, including the 1903 fireproof brick library.
Legacy
*
Horace Howard Furness High School in South Philadelphia is named for him.
*Horace Jr. donated his father's Shakespearean collection to the University of Pennsylvania, whose Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library honors both father and son.
*William Henry Furness III donated the land for the Helen Kate Furness Free Library in
Wallingford, Pennsylvania
Wallingford is an unincorporated community in Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania, Nether Providence Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Delaware County in Pennsylvanias. Founded in 1687, it is named for Wallingford, Oxfordshire, Wallin ...
,
Helen Kate Furness Free Library
/ref> built in 1916 on the former grounds of his parents' country house, "Lindenshade."
File:Lindenshade circa 1873.jpg, "Lindenshade" (built c. 1873, demolished 1940), Wallingford, Pennsylvania
Wallingford is an unincorporated community in Nether Providence Township, Pennsylvania, Nether Providence Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Delaware County in Pennsylvanias. Founded in 1687, it is named for Wallingford, Oxfordshire, Wallin ...
, designed by Frank Furness
Frank Heyling Furness (November 12, 1839 - June 27, 1912) was an American architect of the Victorian era. He designed more than 600 buildings, most in the Philadelphia area, and is remembered for his diverse, muscular, often unordinarily scaled b ...
File:Lindenshade Philadelphia Suburban Homes 1889.jpg, "Lindenshade," circa 1888
File:HH Furness Library Lindenshade 2.jpg, Brick library at "Lindenshade" (1903), in 2017
Image:FisherLibrary.JPG, The University of Pennsylvania Library (1891), now the Fisher Fine Arts Library
The Fisher Fine Arts Library was the primary library of the University of Pennsylvania from 1891 to 1962. The red sandstone, brick-and-terra-cotta Venetian Gothic giant—part fortress and part cathedral—was designed by the acclaimed P ...
File:Fisher Fine Arts Library - IMG 6615.JPG, Leaded glass fanlight over the main entrance to the University of Pennsylvania Library
File:Furness School Philly.JPG, Horace Howard Furness High School in South Philadelphia
File:HK Furness Library.JPG, Helen Kate Furness Free Library (1916), Providence Road & Furness Lane, Wallingford, PA
File:Horace Howard Furness, Horace and Catherine Furness Jayne tombstone.jpg, Horace Howard Furness tombstone in Laurel Hill Cemetery
References
Further reading
* Chapman, John Jay (1915)
''Memories and Milestones''
New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, pp 45–60.
* Gibson, James M. ''The Philadelphia Shakespeare Story: Horace Howard Furness and the New Variorum Shakespeare'' (New York: AMS Press, 1990)
* Jusserand, J. J. (1917)
''With Americans of Past and Present Days''
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 319–332.
* Repplier, Agnes, "Horace Howard Furness
Horace Howard Furness (November 2, 1833 – August 13, 1912) was an American Shakespearean scholar of the 19th century.
Life and career
Horace Furness was the son of the Unitarian minister and abolitionist William Henry Furness (1802–1896), ...
," ''The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', November 1912.
* Williams, Talcott, " Appreciations of Horace Howard Furness: Our Great Shakespere Critic", ''The Century Magazine
''The Century Magazine'' was an illustrated monthly magazine first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City, which had been bought in that year by Roswell Smith and renamed by him after the Century Associatio ...
'', November 1912.
External links
*
* Th
Horace Howard Furness collection on the Great Central Fair
containing Furness' papers and ephemera from the U.S. Sanitary Commission's Great Central Fair in 1864, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...
.
* Th
Furness Library
and th
papers of the Furness family
are located at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Furness, Horace Howard
1833 births
1912 deaths
19th-century American lawyers
19th-century American male writers
20th-century American male writers
American literary critics
Deaf people from the United States
Furness family
Harvard University alumni
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Members of the American Philosophical Society
Pennsylvania lawyers
People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Shakespearean scholars
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Writers from Philadelphia