American editor and author, born in Newburyport, MA, on the 10th of December 1827; educated at Amherst College (1854–58), but did not graduate; was an instructor in Maryland; master in the High School, Cambridge, MA (1862); and editor of Popular Science News (1869). With J. H. Hanson he produced a Hand-book of Latin Poetry (1865); and Selections from Ovid and Virgil (1866); with J. A. Gillet he prepared the Cambridge Course of Physics, six volumes, embracing Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy (1867–69); edited The English of Shakespeare, etc., by G. L. Craik, LL.D. (1867); the plays, sonnets and poems of Shakespeare, in 40 volumes, the edition being known as The Friendly Edition (1870–84), which secured great popularity, and was valuable on account of the editor’s annotations; edited, with notes, separate volumes, the selected works of Milton, Gray, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Macaulay, Tennyson and Browning; Tales from English History, in prose and verse, with notes (1888); Tales from Shakespeare’s Tragedies, by Charles and Mary Lamb (1891); Tales from Scottish History (1891); and Merrill’s English History, by George Curry (1892). In 1849 Amherst enrolled his name in its list of regular graduates; in 1859 he received the degree of A.M. from Harvard; the same degree from Amherst in 1865, and Lit.D. from the latter in 1887. He made many visits to Europe, and on August 29, 1892, met Tennyson at Aldworth, publishing an account of the visit in The Critic, November 26th of that year. He edited the Shakespeariana, in the latter journal.
