The New Shakspere Society was a literary and text publication society founded in Autumn 1873 by Frederick James Furnivall in order "to do honour to Shakspere, to make out the succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of his mind and art; to promote the intelligent study of him, and to print Texts illustrating his works and his times".
The society's first official meeting was held on 13 March 1874 at University College, London, and by the next year membership had reached 500 members.
[2] Members included prominent names of the day such as Eleanor Marx,[3] George Bernard Shaw, James Halliwell-Phillipps, Richard Green Moulton, and Edward Dowden.
[2] In its early years, it hosted public paper discussions and published both Proceedings and Transactions as the official record of the society.
[2] Furnivall and many other members of the society were interested in quantifying Shakespeare's works, such as counting their lines or analyzing the meter of his poetry, which was reflected in their published papers and books.