Isaac Reed

Isaac Reed (1 January 1742 – 5 January 1807) was an English writer and Shakespearean scholar. He is best known for collaborating with Samuel Johnson and George Steevens to edit The Plays of William Shakespeare and publishing a critical edition.

Biography The son of a baker, he was born in London. He was articled to a solicitor, and eventually set up as a conveyancer at Staple Inn, where he had a large practice.

His major work was the Biographia dramatica (2 vols., 1782), a set of biographies of dramatists and a descriptive dictionary of their plays. This book, which was an enlargement of David Erskine Baker's Companion to the Playhouse (2 vols., 1764), was re-edited (3 vols.) by Stephen Jones in 1811. The original work by Baker had been based on Gerard Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), Giles Jacob's Poetical Register (1719), Thomas Whincop's List of all the Dramatic Authors (printed with his tragedy of Scanderbeg, 1747) and the manuscripts of Thomas Coxeter. Reed's Notitia dramatica (British Library, Add MSS 25390–25392), supplementary to the Biographia, was never published.

Reed directed the European Magazine as a proprietor and editor, from 1782 for the duration of his life. After his death, his library of theatrical literature was catalogued for sale as Bibliotheca Reediana (1807). The book was identified as a working copy once owned by Reed, who had bought it in 1786.