Harold Jenkins (Shakespeare scholar)

Harold Jenkins (19 July 1909 – 4 January 2000), is described as "one of the foremost Shakespeare scholars of his century".

His edition of Hamlet was published by Arden Shakespeare in 1982. It represents a peak in the editorial style of drawing on both quarto versions, particularly the 1604 quarto, and also the Folio of 1623, in order to create a single text. He wrote two monographs on Henry Chettle and Edward Benlowes, and he published editions of Elizabethan plays and numerous scholarly articles.

His long collaboration with the Arden Shakespeare started in the 1950s, with the commission to edit Hamlet. In 1958 he was named joint general editor of the series (along with Harold Brooks). In this capacity he worked with some of the most distinguished Shakespearean scholars of his time.

Jenkins was raised in Shenley, Buckinghamshire. He was the eldest son of Henry Jenkins (1878-1932), a dairyman, and his wife, Mildred, née Carter. Jenkins was educated at a local school from age three, and won a place in 1920 at what was to become Wolverton grammar school. He went on in 1927 to University College, London, where he read English language and literature. He graduated in 1930 with honors, winning the George Morley medal in English literature and the George Smith studentship (1930–31). The award of the Quain studentship, which followed, allowed him to continue his studies for five more years, while he also taught. His MA thesis (1933) was on the Elizabethan dramatist, Henry Chettle. This thesis was supervised by W. W. Greg, and was subsequently published as The Life and Work of Henry Chettle. After one year as William Noble fellow in the University of Liverpool he took up a lectureship in English in 1936 at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where he stayed until 1945. His Witwatersrand doctorate thesis was later published as Edward Benlowes (1602-76): Biography of a Minor Poet (1952). While in South Africa, he reviewed books in the medium of radio broadcasts from 1940 until 1945. In 1945, after a decade in South Africa, he returned to London as a professor at University College, London and soon was promoted to Reader. In 1954 he was the first chair of English at Westfield College. During this time, he published essays on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and As You Like It, and he published the study The Structural Problem in Henry IV (1956), which was his inaugural lecture at Westfield College.

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