Kittredge Shakespeare

George Kittredge born in 1860, was nearly 80 years old when the first volumes of Kittredge Shakespeare were published in 1939. The original series included text and analysis of sixteen of Shakespeare's Plays.^[1] Kittredge, who had taught Harvard undergraduates an introductory course on Shakespeare called English 2, had written very little on the subject, other than an address in 1916 at the Sanders Theater, before publishing his Complete Works in 1936 (see below) and the individual play series, starting in 1939.^[2] The original series included an introduction to each play, text of the play, copious literary notes following the text, textual notes, and a glossary.^[3] The original series included the following volumes:

Released 1939: As You Like It, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Tempest.

Released 1940: Henry IV, part 1, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet

Released 1941: Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, Richard The Second, and Twelfth Night.

Also released between 1939 and 1941: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing

Released posthumously: Henry V, The Merchant of Venice^[2]

Kittredge died in July 1941 at age 81, and was working on the original series of these books until shortly before he passed.^[4] In 1945, Arthur Colby Sprague, of Bryn Mawr College, edited volumes for Henry V and The Merchant of Venice from Kittredge's explanatory notes.^[5]

Sixteen Plays of Shakespeare, with a preface by Arthur Colby Sprague, was released as a single volume in 1946.^[6] This collection includes the full introductions and all of the notes, textural notes and play glossaries found in each individual volume.^[7]

Between 1966 and 1969, all of Shakespeare's plays were reissued, revised by Irving Ribner.^[8] New introductions by Professor Ribner replaced Kittredge's originals, and the notes were set out as footnotes to the text, rather than following the text, as was the case in the original series.^[9]