Karl Elze was a German scholar and critic, who had studied philology and modern literature, particularly English. He became professor of English philology at the University of Halle and lectured regularly on Shakespeare. He wrote several books on English literature, including biographies of Byron, Scott and Shakespeare (the present work), and produced an edition of Hamlet in 1857. His biography of Shakespeare argues that the playwright must have spent time in Italy during his 'lost' years (1578-82 and 1585-92), to have written so fluently about the country in so many of his plays.