LEE, SIDNEY:

By: Joseph Jacobs

English editor; born in London Dec. 5, 1859; educated at City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. Almost immediately on leaving college he became associated with Sir Leslie Stephen as assistant editor of the "Dictionary of National Biography" for the first twenty-one volumes (1881-90). For the following five he was joint editor, and for vols. xxvii. to lxiii. and the supplement and index (41 vols. in all) he was sole editor of this national undertaking, which was finished in 1903. In recognition of his work he was made honorary doctor of letters by the Victoria University in 1900. Lee visited the United States on a lecturing tour in 1903.

Besides his work on the dictionary he has edited Lord Berner's translation of "Huon of Bordeaux," 1883-85; Lord Herbert of Cherbury's "Autobiography," 1886; and a facsimile of the first folio of Shakespeare, 1902. Of the lives contributed by him to the "Dictionary of National Biography" two have been issued separately and have established themselves as standard biographies, namely: "William Shakespeare," 1898; and "Queen Victoria," 1902.

J.