Alfred William Pollard (14 August 1859 – 8 March 1944) was an English bibliographer

Bibliography

Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...

, widely credited for bringing a higher level of scholarly rigor to the study of Shakespearean

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 texts.

Pollard was educated at King's College School in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and St John's College

St John's College, Oxford

__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. He joined the staff of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 in 1883, as assistant in the Department of Printed Books; he was promoted to Assistant Keeper in 1909, and Keeper in 1919. In the latter year, Pollard was appointed Professor of English Bibliography at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. He was Honorary Secretary of the Bibliographical Society

Bibliographical Society

Founded in 1892, the Bibliographical Society is the senior learned society dealing with the study of the book and its history, based in London, England....

 from 1893 to 1934 and edited the Society's journal The Library for thirty years (1903–34). He received the Society's Gold Medal in 1929.

Pollard wrote widely on a range of subjects in English literature throughout his career, and collaborated with various scholars in specialized studies; he edited Thomas Malory

Thomas Malory

Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The antiquary John Leland as well as John Bale believed him to be Welsh, but most modern scholars, beginning with G. L...

's Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur

Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...

, and a collection of Fifteenth Century Poetry and Prose. He was a longtime friend of the poet A. E. Housman

A. E. Housman

Alfred Edward Housman , usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900...

, and a close colleague of the prominent Shakespeare scholars Edmund Kerchever Chambers

Edmund Kerchever Chambers

Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....

 and R. B. McKerrow

Ronald Brunlees McKerrow

Ronald Brunlees McKerrow was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century.-Life:R.B...

.

Selected Works by Alfred W. Pollard

• Records of the English Bible: The Documents Relating to the Translation and Publication of the Bible in English, 1525–1611, London, Oxford University Press, 1911.
• Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare's Plays, 1909.
• A New Shakespeare Quarto: Richard II, 1916.
• Shakespeare's Fight with the Pirates, And the Problem of the Transmission of his Text, 1917.
• The Foundations of Shakespeare's Text, 1923.
• Shakespeare's Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More (with W .W. Greg
  Walter Wilson Greg
  Sir Walter Wilson Greg was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century....
  
  , Edward Maunde Thompson
  Edward Maunde Thompson
  Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, GCB was a British palaeographer and Principal Librarian and first Director of the British Museum. He is also noted for his study of William Shakespeare's handwriting in the manuscript of the play Sir Thomas More.-Biography:Thompson's father was Edward Thompson, Custos...
  
  , John Dover Wilson
  J. Dover Wilson
  John Dover Wilson CH was a professor and scholar of Renaissance drama, focusing particularly on the work of William Shakespeare...
  
  , and R. W. Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers was a British literary scholar, author, and academic; throughout his career he was associated with University College London .-Life:...
  
  ), 1923.
• Early Illustrated Books: A History of the Decoration and Illustration of Books in the 15th and 16th Centuries, 1927.
• English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes; Specimens of the Pre-Elizabethan Drama, Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1927.
• The Trained Printer and the Amateur, and the Pleasure of Small Books, 1929.
• A Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto (with Henrietta C. Bartlett), 1939.

External links