Who published the first printed edition of Beowulf in 1815?

Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin published the first printed edition of Beowulf in 1815.

Thorkelin was an Icelandic scholar and Danish civil servant who undertook serious study of the poem’s unique manuscript. He arranged for a transcription in 1787 and later made a second copy himself. His edition, printed in Copenhagen, presented the Old English poem alongside a Latin translation and was titled De Danorum rebus gestis secul. III. & IV.

The edition is important not only because it made the complete poem available in print, but also because Thorkelin’s transcripts preserve readings that were later lost from the manuscript. The Beowulf manuscript was damaged by fire in 1731, making those earlier records valuable evidence for modern editors.

Readers sometimes confuse Thorkelin with Benjamin Thorpe, whose influential English edition appeared later, in 1855. Frederick Klaeber was also a much later editor, while J. R. R. Tolkien became famous for criticism and scholarship rather than for the first printed edition.