Dr. MacDonlad P. Jackson is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has held fellowships at the Folger and Huntington libraries and has been Christensen Fellow at St Catherine's College, Oxford, and S. T. Lee Professorial Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. His publications include ten books, as author or editor, and some two hundred contributions to books and academic journals, mainly on early modern drama.

His Studies in Attribution: Middleton and Shakespeare (Salzburg, 1979) helped establish Middleton's dramatic canon. He is one of three co-editors of the second and third volumes of the Cambridge edition of The Works of John Webster (2003 and 2007) and the author of Defining Shakespeare: "Pericles" as Test Case (Oxford, 2003). He is also an anthologist, literary historian, and critic of New Zealand poetry. He is currently on the Editorial Boards of the Arden Critical Companions and Digital Renaissance Editions series. In 2004 he was elected a Life Member of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association. Words That Count: Early Modern Authorship: Essays in Honor of MacDonald P. Jackson (University of Delaware Press) was published in 2004.

Studies in Attribution: Middleton and Shakespeare (Salzburg: University of Salzburg, 1979). Along with the work of David J. Lake, this book completely revised Middleton's dramatic canon as understood by Dyce and Bullen, adding The Puritan, The Revenger's Tragedy, The Lady's Tragedy, and A Nice Valour, reassigning Blurt Master Constable to Dekker, rejecting The Family of Love as non-Middletonian, advancing new evidence for Middleton's part-authorship of Timon of Athens, and establishing his shares in other collaborative plays.

'Compositorial Practices in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1607-08', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 75 (1981), 157-70. A bibliographical analysis of the quarto, which showed that it was set by two compositors, and that Middleton's orthographical markers appear within both men's stints. 'An Allusion to Marlowe's The Jew of Malta in and Early Seventeenhth-Century Pamphlet Possibly by Thomas Middleton', Notes and Queries, 226 (1982), 132-3. Proposed Middleton as likely author of Plato's Cap. Editor,

'The Revenger's Tragedy': Attributed to Thomas Middleton: A Facsimile of the 1607/8 Quarto (East Brunswick, London, Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1983). A facsimile edition with a long, thoroughly documented introduction, discussing matters of text, date, and source material, and outlining at length the case for Middleton's authorship of the play, which had been widely atrtributed to Cyril Tourneur. This was the first ever edition of The Revenger's Tragedy to have Middleton's name on the cover and title page.

'The Additions to The Second Maiden's Tragedy: Shakespeare or Middleton?', Shakespeare Quarterly, 41 (1990), 402-5. Argued against a proposal that some of the material added to the manuscript of The Lady's Tragedy was by Shakespeare. Provided evidence that it was, like the rest of the play, by Middleton. 'Editing, Attribution Studies, and "Literature Online": A New Resource for Research in Renaissance Drama', Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 12 (1998), 1-15. Includes a demonstration of the efficacy of 'Literature Online' searches in confirming the significance for attribution studies of certain 'Middleton markers.

With Gary Taylor and Paul Mulholland, 'Thomas Middleton, Lording Barry and The Family of Love', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 93 (1999), 213-41. Argues for Lording Barry's sole authorship of The Family of Love, long ascribed to Middleton. 'Anything for a Quiet Life, IV.ii.1-44:

'The Hazards of Collaboration', Notes and Queries, 250 (2006), 87-90. Discusses a passage in this Middleton-Webster collaboration that has usually been attributed to Webster. Shows that it is by Middleton, and examines a failure of coordination between the two playwrights at the point where their contributions joined. Editor, with David Gunby and David Carnegie, The Works of John Webster: Volume Three (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Includes an old-spelling edition-with full textual apparatus, introductions, and commentary-of Anything for a Quiet Life, a comedy written by Middleton and Webster in collaboration.

Review of The Art of Thomas Middleton: A Critical Study, by David M. Holmes. AUMLA: The Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, 36 (1971), 227-30. Review of The Canon of Thomas Middleton's Plays, by David J. Lake. Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 75 (1976), 414-17.