author
Sir Sidney Lee
1859–1926
A leading literary biographer and Shakespeare scholar, he helped shape how generations of readers met some of Britain’s most famous writers. He is especially remembered for his work on the Dictionary of National Biography and for popular studies of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan age.
2 Audiobooks
Shakespeare and the Modern Stage; with Other Essays
by Sir Sidney Lee
A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles
by Sir Sidney Lee
About the author
Born in London in 1859, Sir Sidney Lee was educated at the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He built his reputation as a man of letters, critic, and biographer at a time when literary history was becoming a serious scholarly field.
Lee is best known for his long association with the Dictionary of National Biography. He contributed hundreds of entries and went on to become its editor, playing a major part in one of the great reference works of British literary culture. His writing combined careful research with a gift for making historical figures vivid to general readers.
He also became one of the best-known Shakespeare scholars of his day. His Life of William Shakespeare and other studies of Elizabethan literature helped bring the playwright’s world to a broad audience, and he later served as professor of English language and literature at the University of London. Knighted for his contributions to literature and scholarship, he died in 1926.