Henry Norman Hudson

Born in Cornwall, Vermont, on January 28, 1814, he came from modest beginnings and worked as a coach-maker’s apprentice before entering Middlebury College, where he graduated in 1840. After college he spent several years lecturing on Shakespeare, building the foundation for a career that would make him one of the best-known American interpreters of the playwright in the 19th century.

His reputation grew quickly after the publication of Lectures on Shakespeare in 1848. Alongside his literary work, he became a deacon in the Episcopal Church, edited several periodicals, and later served during the Civil War as a chaplain with General Benjamin F. Butler. He wrote about that experience in A Chaplain's Campaigns with General Butler (1865), showing a more combative and personal side than readers might expect from a literary critic.

He is most closely associated with annotated editions of Shakespeare, including work that led to the well-known "New Hudson Shakespeare" and the Harvard Shakespeare. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 16, 1886, but his editions and commentary helped shape how generations of American readers encountered Shakespeare.