must rank Halliwell-Phillipps' monumental Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, a work printing in convenient form the bulk of the scattered materials upon which every biography of the poet necessarily reposes. Without this indispensable collection, the task of examining at first hand the original documents would be well-nigh impossible. Sir Sidney Lee's encyclopædic Life of William Shakespeare has also proved a mine of information; and though I have frequently found myself unable to accept its interpretation of fact, I have invariably accorded to the opinions of its distinguished author the consideration which his great reputation demands. To the labors of Professor Wallace is due, especially in the chapters dealing with theatrical history, more credit than perhaps would seem to be the case from my scanty footnotes; but so well-known are his discoveries that one may now take detailed acknowledgment to be a work of supererogation. The same may be said of the copious industry of Mrs. Charlotte C. Stopes. Finally, to the researches of Mr. Walter Wilson Greg, Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, and Mr. J. Dover Wilson, whose studies have recently illuminated the whole field of Shakespearean bibliography, the last three chapters are almost entirely indebted, as I hope the footnotes will properly indicate. To various friends I wish to express my gratitude for aid generously rendered: to Professor Lane Cooper for reading my manuscript with the sagacious criticism which those who know him have learned to expect from his good taste and judgment; to Mr. Henry Roenne for the drawings of the Globe, which he executed as a labor of love; to Mr. Beverly Chew, the dean of American book-collectors, for permitting the reproduction of certain engravings in his library; to Mr. William A. White, of Brooklyn, for freely placing at my disposal his priceless collection of Shakespeareana; and to my colleagues, Professor Lane Cooper, Professor Clark S. Northup, Professor Martin Wright Sampson, and Professor William Strunk, Jr., for help in the task of reading the proofs, and for many wise suggestions. Finally, to Mr. August Heckscher, of New York City, I wish to record a special obligation. Through his bounty in establishing at Cornell University the Heckscher Foundation for the Advancement of Research I came to be relieved for a time from the routine of class-room instruction in order that I might complete my investigations and prepare my manuscript for the press. But for this welcome relief I should have had to defer publication for some years. |