Malone, Edmund (1741-1812)

English critic and editor. He devoted himself to the study of Shakespeare. In 1778 he published an Attempt to Ascertain the Order in which the Plays of Shakespeare were Written, and from 1783 worked at his edition of Shakespeare, which appeared 1790. In 1800 his edition of Dryden's works was published with a biographical introduction.

Malone was among the first to express disbelief in Thomas Chatterton's poems supposed to have been written by T Rowley, and in 1796 he denounced the Shakespeare forgeries of Samuel Ireland.

He was born in Dublin, educated at Trinity College there, and called to the Irish Bar before travelling to London 1777. Eight years later he was elected to Samuel Johnson's Literary Club, becoming friendly with its most prominent members, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, and James Boswell.