Lawyer. Scholar. The son of William Henry Furness, he graduated from Harvard University. After additional studies in Germany, he was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar. A hearing impairment was an obstacle to his pursuing law. This "amateur" joined the Shakespeare Society of Philadelphia, becoming one of the premier Shakespearean scholars of his era. The only standard collection of Shakespeare's works at that time was "the Variorum" which had been published in 1821. No central source existed for scholarship after that date. Furness's "New Variorum" would bring all textual changes and all relevant scholarship on Shakespeare into one collection. During his life, he completed variorum editions for 15 plays; after the elder Furness's death, his son, Henry Howard Furness, Jr., added five plays to the New Variorum. Furness's wife Kate shared in his interest in and in his work on Shakespeare. Furness was the academic adviser of Emily Clara Jordan, wife of Henry Clay Folger as she pursued her graduate studies in Shakespeare. Furness's interest in Shakespeare went beyond the academic. He and Fanny Kemble exchanged many letters on theatrical and performance issues with Shakespeare's plays. The Furness Library of the University of Pennsylvania, along with the Huntingdon in California, and the Folger in Washington, D.C., remains an importance center of Shakespearean studies. It contains all of the folios and many of the quartos originally published.
Lawyer. Scholar. The son of William Henry Furness, he graduated from Harvard University. After additional studies in Germany, he was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar. A hearing impairment was an obstacle to his pursuing law. This "amateur" joined the Shakespeare Society of Philadelphia, becoming one of the premier Shakespearean scholars of his era. The only standard collection of Shakespeare's works at that time was "the Variorum" which had been published in 1821. No central source existed for scholarship after that date. Furness's "New Variorum" would bring all textual changes and all relevant scholarship on Shakespeare into one collection. During his life, he completed variorum editions for 15 plays; after the elder Furness's death, his son, Henry Howard Furness, Jr., added five plays to the New Variorum. Furness's wife Kate shared in his interest in and in his work on Shakespeare. Furness was the academic adviser of Emily Clara Jordan, wife of Henry Clay Folger as she pursued her graduate studies in Shakespeare. Furness's interest in Shakespeare went beyond the academic. He and Fanny Kemble exchanged many letters on theatrical and performance issues with Shakespeare's plays. The Furness Library of the University of Pennsylvania, along with the Huntingdon in California, and the Folger in Washington, D.C., remains an importance center of Shakespearean studies. It contains all of the folios and many of the quartos originally published.
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