Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/196

 serial form of publication, as is shown by the reception enjoyed by such works as the "New Popular Educator" and "Electrical Engineering"; but the list of publishing dates of Cassell & Co. is little likely ever again to include serials by the dozen, as it did in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Of the many Cassell editions of Shakespeare, the most notable are those associated with the Cowden Clarkes and with Furnivall, which, in altered forms, are still in publication. The edition annotated by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke was brought out in 1864, in weekly numbers at one penny and in monthly parts at fivepence and sixpence. It was several times re-issued, and appeared in 1886 under the title of "Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare," the illustrations being from drawings by H. C. Selous. The "Leopold" Shakespeare was a reprint of the text of Delius, and was dedicated to Prince Leopold, but colloquially it was often spoken of as "Furnivall's Shakespeare," a testimony to the impression made by the elaborate Introduction contributed by Dr. Furnivall. That famous essay was composed with difficulty. Furnivall habitually undertook more work than he could get through, and he was naturally dilatory. His copy was so often very late, or not forthcoming at all, that Manson, who was putting the book through the press, had to beard him daily in his den at Primrose Hill and insist that he should dictate something. Thus was the work, as he said in his preface, "dragged out of him when in a Hamlet-like mood of putting off," and "amid constant injunctions to be short." He was candid enough to say some years later that, but for Manson, the "Introduction" would never have been written.

The Delius text was also used for the "Royal Shakespeare," issued serially in 1880-85. The Introduction to the "Leopold" Shakespeare was published separately in 1908, under the title of "Shakespeare: Life and Work," being the preliminary volume of the "Century Shakespeare," in