George Henry Lewes’s Annotations of the Comedies in Charles Knight’s Shakspere (2nd Edition, 1842–1844)

George Henry Lewes’s (1817–1878) extensively annotated copy of the twelve-volume The Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems of William Shakspere, edited by Charles Knight (2nd edition, 1842–1844) and published by Knight, is now at the Folger Library, Washington, DC.1 What follows is a record of selective Lewes annotations on four of the comedies contained in the first three volumes of his copy, with a brief discussion of patterns in his Shakespearian marginalia for this group of plays.2 Lewes’s innumerable marginal linings and underscoring, however, are too numerous to include in their totality in this account. Lewes’s annotations constitute unpublished primary material, are a resource for the study of reading Shakespeare in the 1840’s, the Shakespeare/Knight edition and provide insight into an early Victorian responding to selected Shakespearian Comedies. Unfortunately, space considerations do not allow for description of Lewes’s spacing on Knight’s page, or his ink usage.