William James Rolfe

William James Rolfe, Litt.D. (December 10, 1827 – July 7, 1910) was an American educator and Shakespearean scholar.

Early in his career, he edited selections from Ovid and Virgil and (in collaboration) the Cambridge Course of Physics (six volumes, 1867–68).

Rolfe's Shakespearean work began with an American edition of George Lillie Craik's English of Shakespeare (3rd revised ed., 1864, ), which Crosby and Ainsworth published in 1867 . This led to his preparation for Harper & Brothers of a complete edition of Shakespeare – the Friendly Edition (forty volumes, 1870–83; new edition, 1903–07). Rolfe's editions proved to be the best-selling versions in America (during a time of increased use of Shakespeare in high school classrooms) due both to his credentials as a high school administrator and to his use of Bowdlerization of the text in order to remove much of Shakespeare's lewd content.

Rolfe also edited a complete edition of Tennyson (twelve volumes, 1898) and verse by many of the other great English poets. He wrote a very useful Satchel Guide to Europe, revised annually for 35 years, and at least five other books:

Shakespeare the Boy (1896) The Elementary Study of English (1896) Life of Shakespeare (1901) Life of William Shakespeare (1904) Shakesperean Proverbs (1908)

Personal life He married Eliza Jane Carew in Dorchester on July 30, 1856.

William James Rolfe died on July 7, 1910, at the home of a son in Tisbury, Massachusetts.