A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Steevens, George

by John William Cousin

Steevens, George (1736-1800). -- Shakespearian commentator, ed. at Eton and Camb. He issued various reprints of quarto ed. of Shakespeare, and assisted Dr. Johnson in his ed., and also in his Lives of the Poets. In 1793 he himself brought out a new ed. of Shakespeare, in which he dealt somewhat freely with the text. He was in constant controversy with Ritson and other literary antiquaries, and was also an acute detector of literary forgeries, including those of Chatterton and Ireland.