Abstract
This chapter turns to the New Shakspere Society’s most important early contributor, Frederick Gard Fleay. Fleay was brilliant, pigheaded, and paranoid. He rarely apologized for his own errors (though there were many); instead he dreamt up tales of treachery, and, when he wasn’t demanding that the entire organization kowtow to his genius, generally played the aggrieved party. That said, the New Shakspere Society’s hitherto unpublished correspondence makes clear that Fleay had good reason to feel offended. As I will argue in both Chaps. 10.1007/978-3-319-48781-6_1 and 10.1007/978-3-319-48781-6_2, Fleay was so sure that someone (possibly Furnivall himself) had corrupted his data, that he threatened legal action. In response, a special New Shakspere Society committee, convened to answer Fleay’s charges, was formed. The secretive nature of their process likely made Fleay both more suspicious and accusatory, and the relationship ended the way quarrels with Furnivall commonly ended, bitterly and brusquely.