Sidney Lee (1859–1926)

This is an old biography of the Bard published at the end of the 19th century, included in the Delphi Classics edition of the Complete Works. It summarises the known facts of his life and the origins and performance history of each of his plays, plus how his work was interpreted in the nearly three centuries following his death. It also includes discussion of all the claimed portraits and signatures known at the time. Even at the end of the 19th century, Shakespeare's plays were being read and played across the world in all continents; as the author says, "Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth, Falstaff and Shylock, Brutus and Romeo, Ariel and Caliban are studied in almost every civilised tongue as if they were historic personalities, and the chief of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are rooted in the speech of civilised humanity." There is also an overlong appendix, which I skimmed only, looking at a range of other issues, including the history of the sonnet as a literary form in the 16th century. Some of this will have been superseded by more recent discoveries and scholarship, but this is quite a useful if dated reference work.… (more)