Historical Scholarship
The works below are all in the public domain and freely available online from either Project Gutenberg or the HathiTrust Digital Library. Although these works date back a century or more, there is still valuable and historical information to be found in them. Authors such as Bradley and Chambers are part of the foundation upon which contemporary Shakespearean scholarship is based.
| Author | Title | Year Published | Catalog Link |
| Joseph Quincy Adams | Shakespearean Playhouses | 1917 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22397 |
| Arthur Acheson | Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 | 1920 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24500 |
| Raymond MacDonald Alden | A Shakespeare Handbook | 1925 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004439762 |
| George Pierce Baker | The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist | 1910 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100543082 |
| Bernard Beckerman | Shakespeare at the Globe, 1599-1609 | 1962 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66536 |
| Frederick S. Boas | Shakespeare and his Predecessors | 1900 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001909133 |
| Walter George Boswell-Stone | Shakespeare's Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared | 1907 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001365706 |
| A.C. Bradley | Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth | 1919 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16966 |
| Georg Brandes | William Shakespeare: A Critical Study | 1905 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50724 |
| C.F. Tucker Brooke | The Shakespeare Apocrypha | 1918 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001018073 |
| E.K. Chambers | The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. I | 1923 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66003 |
| Samuel T. Coleridge | Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher | 1874 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25585 |
| Evan J. Cuthbertson | William Shakespeare: The Story of his Life & Times | 1897 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001368086 |
| Francis Douce | Illustrations of Shakspeare, and of Ancient Manners | 1839 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50228 |
| Nathan Drake | Shakspeare and His Times, Vol. I | 1817 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53625 |
| Nathan Drake | Shakspeare and His Times, Vol. II | 1817 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53626 |
| Henry Nicholson Ellacombe | The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare | 1884 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28407 |
| Benjamin Rush Field | Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare | 1885 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61366 |
| François Guizot | Shakspeare and His Times | 1852 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62602 |
| Frank Harris | The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story | 1909 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9079 |
| William Hazlitt | Characters of Shakespeare's Plays | 1817 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5085 |
| Henry Norman Hudson | Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters (2 Volumes) | 1872 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006057092 |
| Maurice Jonas | Shakespeare and the Stage | 1918 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54410 |
| Sir Sidney Lee | A Life of William Shakespeare | 1899 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23464 |
| Sir Sidney Lee | Shakespeare and the Modern Stage; with Other Essays | 1907 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18780 |
| M.W. MacCallum | Shakespeare's Roman Plays and their Background | 1925 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001366307 |
| H.N. MacCracken, F.E. Pierce, and W.H. Durham | An Introduction to Shakespeare | 1925 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30982 |
| Edward N. Naylor | Shakespeare and Music | 1896 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19676 |
| William Allan Neilson | The Facts About Shakespeare | 1915 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100547196 |
| J. M. Robertson | Montaigne and Shakspere | 1897 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25535 |
| Mary Rose | The Women of Shakespeare's Family | 1905 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001018384 |
| C.C. Stopes | Shakespeare's Family | 1901 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26315 |
| C.C. Stopes | Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries | 1897 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100506787 |
| T.F. Thiselton-Dyer | Folk-lore of Shakespeare | 1884 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32183 |
| Albert H. Tolman | Questions on Shakespeare, Part I | 1910 | https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001112237 |
| William Winter | Shakespeare's England | 1892 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35105 |