Shakespeariana (vol. VII, 1890, p. 248-250) adds these descriptive and critical details about Hudson:

HENRY NORMAN HUDSON was born in Cornwall, Vermont, January 28th, 1814. As the son of a farmer he had no advantages of higher education beyond those at reach on the farm. In his eighteenth year he was bound out to learn the trade of coachmaking, and, though he served his three years' apprenticeship faithfully, it was apparent that his appetite for books was fast leading him beyond the workman's bench. He had the privilege of using extra hours to earn additional wages, and the money thus earned was spent at the village bookstore, the bookstore of a university town, in purchasing works of an unusually solid character. The first book that took hold of him was Abercrombie on The Intellectual Powers. Then came Butler's Analogy, Plutarch's Lives, Milton, and books of that character. He never read novels. He determined to obtain a collegiate education, and accordingly he fitted himself to enter the freshman class in Middlebury College, where he graduated in 1840, and was a classmate of Hon. Edward J. Phelps, late American Minister to England, and of John G. Saxe, the poet. Dr. Hudson first taught school in Kentucky and Alabama, and during these early years prepared a series of lectures on Shakespeare, which showed ripeness of thought and mastery of language. In 1844 Mr. Hudson came to Boston, and immediately began lecturing upon his favorite subject. He became intimate with many leaders in literary society, and his acquaintance with Dr. William Croswell, rector of the Church of the Advent, led to his admittance to the diaconate in the Episcopal Church in 1849. He was still more or less engaged in literary pursuits, and in 1852 became and continued for nearly three years the editor of The Churchman, a weekly religious journal then published in New York. Subsequently he originated the Church Monthly, which he edited a year or two. His only -parochial charge had been that of St. Michael's Church at Litchfield, Connecticut, assumed in 1858 and retained until 1860. It was in 1851 that his first edition of Shakespeare's Plays appeared; and this, properly speaking, was the first time the poet's text had been edited in this country. For three years during the war Mr. Hudson served as chaplain in the regiment of the New York Volunteer Engineers. In this period he was put under arrest, and in consequence of that afterward published a pamphlet entitled A Chaplain's Campaign with General Butler, in which he was very severe upon the general. For a few months he was editor of the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. In 1870 Ginn & Heath, as his publishers, brought out his School Shakespeare in three volumes. In 1872 he put forth Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters, and later on a volume of sermons. The Text-Book of Poetry was his next publication, and then he set to work upon a text-book of English prose. In 1877 the Classical English Reader was issued. From 1865 he resided principally in Cambridge, frequently officiating in parish churches on Sundays, but principally devoting himself to the teaching of Shakespeare and and other English authors in Boston and the immediate neighborhood. He was for a long time a lecturer on English literature at the Boston University. A few years ago he received the degree of LL.D. from Middlebury College. Personally Mr. Hudson was said to be a man of marked peculiarities. He cared little for the opinions of others where they were at variance with his own, and would not have been troubled if he had had to stand against the world. He had the courage of his convictions almost more than any other man of his time. In appearance he was thought to resemble Carlyle. His life work had been primarily the study of the one great subject of Shakespeare, and his English textbooks were a vigorous protest " against putting young students through a course of mere nibbles and snatches from a multitude of authors, where they cannot stay long enough with any one to develop any real taste for him or derive any solid benefit from him." The perfected fruit of his long, loving, and laborious study was The Harvard Shakespeare, of whose system and merits SHAKESPEARIANA printed a careful examination in its series of papers, "What Edition of Shakespeare Shall I Buy."  Dr. Hudson died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 17th, 1886, aged seventy-two years. Had we written his epitaph, we should have used his own words : " I have had much the same life in the society of Shakespeare's characters as in that of any breathing fellow-creatures, with this addition, that I know sickness cannot wither their bloom, nor death make spoil of their sweetness."

Links to Hudson's "Harvard Edition" of 1881

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. With A Life of the Poet, Explanatory Foot-Notes, Critical Notes, and a Glossarial Index.  Harvard Edition.  By the Rev. Hanry N. Hudson, LL.D. In Twenty Volumes.  Boston : Ginn, Heath, & Co. 1881.

• Vol. I
  • Preface
  • Life of Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare's Will
  • Dedication Prefixed to the Folio of 1623
  • Address Prefixed to the Folio of 1623
  • Commendatory Verses Prefixed to the Folio of 1623
  • Commendatory Verses Prefixed to the Folio of 1632
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Vol. II
  • Love's Labour's Lost
  • The Taming of the Shrew
• Vol. III
  • A Midsummer-Night's Dream
  • The Merchant of Venice
• Vol. IV
  • All's Well That Ends Well
  • Much Ado About Nothing
• Vol. V
  • As You Like It
  • Twelfth Night
• Vol. VI
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Measure for Measure
• Vol. VII
  • The Tempest
  • The Winter's Tale
• Vol. VIII
  • King Henry VI. Part First.
  • King Henry VI. Part Second.
• Vol. IX
  • King Henry VI. Part Third.
  • King Richard the Third.
• Vol. X
  • King John
  • King Richard the Second.
• Vol. XI
  • King Henry IV. Part First.
  • King Henry IV. Part Second.
• Vol. XII
  • King Henry the Fifth.
  • King Henry the Eighth.
• Vol. XIII
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Romeo and Juliet
• Vol. XIV
  • Julius Caesar
  • Hamlet Prince of Denmark
• Vol. XV
  • King Lear
  • Timon of Athens
• Vol. XVI
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • Troilus and Cressida
• Vol. XVII
  • Macbeth
  • Othello, The Moor of Venice
• Vol. XVIII
  • Cymbeline
  • Coriolanus
• Vol. XIX
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen
  • Venus and Adonis
• Vol. XX
  • Lucrece
  • Sonnets
  • A Lover's Complaint
  • The Passionate Pilgrim
  • Index

Links to Other Works by Hudson

• Essays on English Studies, ed. A. J. George, 1906, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

Henry Norman Hudson's Obituary, from Shakespeariana, Vol. III, Num. XXVI, 1886, p. 81-82

HENRY NORMAN HUDSON.

The death of Henry Norman Hudson at his home in Cambridgeport, Mass., on January 17th, removes one of the most conspicuous workers in Shakespeare literature. His studies of the poet began almost in his boyhood, and the subject very soon absorbed all the powers of his mind. His earliest work was a series of critical lectures, delivered first in Huntsville, Ala., where he was for some time teaching, and subsequently, in Mobile and Cincinnati. In 1844, with a reputation that was already assured, he went to Boston, where he was cordially received, and was so successful that he repeated his lectures in Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore. These lectures form the basis of Mr. Hudson's fame. They were published in book form in 1848 and again, although entirely recast with numerous changes and additions, and with a new title, Shakespeare : His Life, Art and Characters, in 1872. Had Mr. Hudson accomplished no other work than these lectures he would be entitled to a high rank among the students of Shakespeare. They exhibited a wonderful power of thought, and a clearer insight into the character of Shakespeare than had been previously obtained by any American writer. They are without doubt, the writings by which he will be longest and best remembered.

But while his best work has been done as an esthetic critic, Mr. Hudson's reputation as an editor is well known. His first edition of the plays issued in x8gx was not, however, successful: Much of the editorial matter was compiled, and, at the time, created much unfavorable comment. His last edition, the Harvard, brought out in 1880 and 1881 in twenty volumes, was entirely free from the faults of the earliest one, and will long remain one of the most reliable and best. He also issued two School editions ; one of twenty-one plays in three volumes in 1870, and the second a few years later, of the same number of plays in separate volumes. The text was expurgated, so thoroughly, in truth, as to be open to many serious objections.

While Mr. Hudson's chief labors were in Shakespearian literature, he found time to do much good work in other directions. He was the editor of several journals, notably the Churchman, the Church Monthly, which he originated, and the Saturday Evening Gazette. In his later years he turned his attention to Wordsworth, and his Studies in Wordsworth, issued last year, was his last book. He had also published A Text Book of Poetry, A Text Book of Prose, a Classical English Reader—all with valuable though brief notes,—and a volume of sermons.

Hudson was essentially an educator. His most important works were designed as educational forces, and they fulfill the intentions of their author to a degree that he could not have anticipated. He was a powerful and original thinker, and his style was clear and distinct. He was, perhaps, too positive, too certain that his view was the only one, bur his faults as an editor and an author were such as can be readily overlooked.