William James Rolfe


William James Rolfe, Litt.D. was an American educator and Shakespearean scholar.
Rolfe was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on December 10, 1827. He attended Amherst College from 1845 through 1848, but left without graduating after three years due to financial hardship. Amherst, though, nonetheless later awarded him an honorary degree. Between 1852 and 1868, he served as headmaster of high schools at Dorchester, Lawrence, Salem, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Early in his career, he edited selections from Ovid and Virgil and the Cambridge Course of Physics.
Rolfe's Shakespearean work began with an American edition of George Lillie Craik's English of Shakespeare, which Crosby and Ainsworth published in 1867. This led to his preparation for Harper & Brothers of a complete edition of Shakespeare – the Friendly Edition. Rolfe's editions proved to be the best-selling versions in America 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 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:
William James Rolfe died on July 7, 1910, at the home of a son in Tisbury, Massachusetts. He was the father of John Carew Rolfe, Charles J. Rolfe and George Rolfe, who may all have been academicians.