George Henry Lewes's Reading of Hamlet

Abstract George Henry Lewes's heavily annotated copy of the text of Hamlet in Charles Knight's edition of The Comedies, Histories, Tragedies and Poems of Shakspere constitutes an early Victorian reaction by a highly literate literary critic to Shakespeare's tragedy. An analysis of Lewes's annotations throws considerable light upon his interests and preoccupations at a period in which he was writing prolifically. This article provides examples from various kinds of Lewes's marginalia, his marginal linings, his underlining and his marginal annotations, some of which are very detailed. These demonstrate which lines of Hamlet specifically attracted him and why; Lewes's engagement with critics such as S. T. Coleridge, and predecessors such as Warburton and Wharton; and German responses to Hamlet, especially Goethe's, and others. Lewes's marginalia also reveals his knowledge of the classical tradition and throws light on his response to Hamlet and on his own preoccupations at the time he made them.