Lee preceded the revolutionary bibliographers of the early twentieth century, Pollard, Greg and McKerrow.  In fact, his work with Shakespeare facsimiles in part stimulated their discoveries.  The generation of critics to spring from the "new" understanding of the texts revealed by the work of the bibliographers disdained the understanding of the older school.  J. Dover Wilson, for example, says of Lee's "Introduction" to the 1902 facsimile, "In that year the Oxford University Press published a collotype facsimile of the First Folio, with an Introduction by Sidney Lee.  Political revolutions are often precipitated by extreme conservatives.  The revolution in English textual criticism was, we shall see, directly provoked by Lee's unfortunate essay, which will go down to history as the last, and not the least dogmatic, statement of the traditional views about Shakespeare's text" ("The New Way With Shakespeare's Texts" Shakespeare Survey 7, p. 52).  Wilson's remarks were parroted by others at the time (see McManaway in The Modern Language Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1956) for example).  One needn't dwell on the Oedipal flailings of the rebellious younger critics.

Lee's Introduction to this work is very difficult to find, but I have discovered it on the Internet at the Online Library of Liberty, in PDF format. In fact, the entire 1902 collotype facsimile edition of the First Folio is available at that source.  The full title is:  Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Folio Edition 1623 from the Chatsworth copy in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G. with an Introduction and Census of Copies by Sidney Lee (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1902).  The source Folio of the facsimile has since passed into the possession of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Links to the collotype facsimile editions

Thanks to Lee's diligence we have five other collotype facsimiles of Shakespearean works not included in the First Folio.  They are all available from Google Book Search:

• Shakespeares Sonnets, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of The First Edition 1609, ed. Sidney Lee, Oxford, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 75 pages. [Very unfortunately the scan of this volume was performed execrably by the Google technicians.  Many of the pages are obscured.  Please join me in asking them to rescan this work.  On the bright side, there is an excellent facsimile edition of the 1609 Sonnets from the Internet Shakespeare Editions.]
• Shakespears Venus and Adonis, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of The First Edition 1593 From the Unique Copy in the Malone Collection In The Bodleian Library,  ed. Sidney Lee, 1905, from Google Book Search, full text and PDF, 75 pages.
• Shakespeares Lucrece, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of The First Edition 1594, ed. Sidney Lee, Oxford, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 91 pages.
• The Passionate Pilgrim, being a reproduction in facsimile of the first edition 1599, etc.  Includes an introduction and bibliography (with census of copies) by Sidney Lee, The Clarendon Press, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view with PDF, 62 pages.
• Shakespeares Pericles Being a Reproduction in Facsimile Of The First Edition 1609, ed. Sidney Lee, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 68 pages.  [Pericles was not included in the First Folio, and was added with the spurious plays in the 1664 Third Folio.  It is the only one of the spurious plays to be accepted into the canon.]

Three of these facsimile editions are also available through the Internet Archive:

• Lucrece
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• Pericles

Lee's collotype facsimiles were well known in their day (witness this ad [note the prices and bibliographic detail] in Publisher's Weekly for March 18, 1905; and this one in The Dial, for May 1 of the same year), but have been forgotten until the resources of the Internet have made them available to us again.

The Collotype Process

What does it mean for a work to be a "collotype facsimile"?  Well may you ask.

According to Wikipedia:

"Collotype is a dichromate-based photographic process developed for large volume mechanical printing before the existence of cheaper offset lithography. It can produce results difficult to distinguish from metal-based photographic prints because of its microscopically fine reticulations which comprise the image.

The collotype plate is made by coating a plate of glass or metal with a substrate composed of gelatin or other colloid and hardening it. Then it is coated with a thick coat of dichromated gelatine and dryed carefully at a controlled temperature (a little over 50 degrees Celsius) so it 'reticulates' or breaks up into a finely grained pattern when washed later in approximately 16 °C water. The plate is then exposed in contact with the negative using an ultraviolet (UV) light source which changes the ability of the exposed gelatine to absorb water later. The plate is developed by carefully washing out the dichromate salt and dried without heat. The plate is left in a cool dry place to cure for 24 hours before using it to print.

To produce prints, the plate is dampened with a glycerine/water mixture which is slightly acidic , then blotted before inking with collotype ink using a leather or velvet roller. A hard finished paper such as Bristol, is then put on top of the plate and covered with a tympan before being printed typically using a hand proof press. Collotypes are printed using less pressure than is used in printing intaglio, or stone lithography. While it is possible to print by hand using a roller or brayer, an acceptable consistency of pressure and even distribution of ink is most effectively achieved using a press."

The process is no longer used, having been superseded by lithographic techniques.  See also Collotype & Pochoir for fascinating details of the process.

Lee was also one of the co-editors of the Dictionary of National Biography, responsible for many of its articles, and is also responsible for his own edition of the Complete Works.