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The Oxford Shakespeare brings the modern reader closer to Shakespeare's plays as originally performed than has ever before been possible. Based on eight years of full-time research by a team of distinguished British and American scholars, this monumental volume offers many remarkable innovations, including a new chronological order, revised stage directions, two full versions of King Lear--as originally written and as revised later for performance--and the complete text of The Two Noble Kinsmen.
The Compact Edition packs all these features into a portable and inexpensive single volume. In addition, a lucid General Introduction by Stanley Wells and brief introductions to each play provide a wealth of background information. Hailed by The Washington Post as "a definitive synthesis of the best editions of recent decades" and by The Times of London as "a monument to Shakespearian scholarship," it is an ideal travel companion on vacations or trips and a perfect gift for literature lovers young and old.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Alphabetical List of Contents(p. xi)
• List of Illustrations(p. xiii)
• General Introduction(p. xv)
• Contemporary Allusions to Shakespeare(p. xl)
• Commendatory Poems and Prefaces(p. xliii)
• The Complete Works
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona(p. 1)
• The Taming of the Shrew(p. 25)
• The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI)(p. 55)
• The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and the Good King Henry the Sixth (3 Henry VI)(p. 91)
• The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus(p. 125)
• The First Part of Henry the Sixth(p. 153)
• The Tragedy of King Richard the Third(p. 183)
• Venus and Adonis(p. 223)
• The Rape of Lucrece(p. 237)
• The Comedy of Errors(p. 257)
• Love's Labour's Lost(p. 279)
• Love's Labour's Won: A Brief Account(p. 309)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream(p. 311)
• The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet(p. 335)
• The Tragedy of King Richard the Second(p. 367)
• The Life and Death of King John(p. 397)
• The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice(p. 425)
• The History of Henry the Fourth (1 Henry IV)(p. 453)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor(p. 483)
• The Second Part of Henry the Fourth(p. 509)
• Much Ado About Nothing(p. 541)
• The Life of Henry the Fifth(p. 567)
• The Tragedy of Julius Caesar(p. 599)
• As You Like It(p. 627)
• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark(p. 653)
• Twelfth Night, or What You Will(p. 691)
• Troilus and Cressida(p. 715)
• Sonnets and 'A Lover's Complaint'(p. 749)
• Various Poems(p. 777)
• Sir Thomas More: Passages Attributed to Shakespeare(p. 785)
• Measure for Measure(p. 789)
• The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice(p. 819)
• All's Well That Ends Well(p. 855)
• The Life of Timon of Athens(p. 883)
• The History of King Lear: The Quarto Text(p. 909)
• The Tragedy of King Lear: The Folio Text(p. 943)
• The Tragedy of Macbeth(p. 975)
• The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra(p. 1001)
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre: A Reconstructed Text(p. 1037)
• The Tragedy of Coriolanus(p. 1065)
• The Winter's Tale(p. 1101)
• Cymbeline, King of Britain(p. 1131)
• The Tempest(p. 1167)
• Cardenio: A Brief Account(p. 1191)
• All Is True (Henry VIII)(p. 1193)
• The Two Noble Kinsmen(p. 1225)
• Select Glossary(p. 1257)
• Index of First Lines of the Sonnets(p. 1273)

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Library Journal Review

This second edition updates the 1986 release. According to the publisher, this volume, which contains all the bard's plays, poems, and sonnets, "is the most exhaustive examination ever undertaken of the nature and authority of Shakespeare's works" by English and American scholars. The Pelican Shakespeare people may beg to differ, but let them duke it out. Along with the texts it includes stage directions, introductions, and a trove of other scholarly goodies. A beauty. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Long overdue in an otherwise publication-saturated area of scholarship, the Oxford Complete Works is providing the first radical rethinking of the Shakespeare texts in almost a century. The old-spelling volume, reviewed here, shares with the previously available modernized-spelling volume (CH, Mar '87) the same up-to-date general introduction by Stanley Wells, a useful chronology of contemporary allusions to Shakespeare, brief introductions to individual works, and a glossary. Additionally, it also includes an essay on Shakespeare's language by Vivian Salmon. (Promised for early 1987, but alas, still unavailable, is the commentary volume, which contains the textual apparatus for both.) Shakespeare's popularity with nonspecialist readers has always given the edge to editions that modernized spelling and punctuation. Accessibility creates problems, however, not the least of which is the illusion that Shakespeare is our contemporary. One serious consequence is to obscure the links between Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights, most of whom exist for us in standard scholarly editions that reproduce the spelling, punctuation, and typographical conventions of their age. Textual editors have little confidence that in such matters the Quartos and Folio represent anything that Shakespeare wrote, wanted, or would have approved. The old-spelling editors have, accordingly, reproduced the spelling and punctuation of whichever early edition seemed closest to Shakespeare's manuscript. For emendations, they used the conventions of the original text or, when it could be conjectured, of the manuscript behind it. None of their solutions is likely to be accepted as definitive, but the Oxford editors have made what must be recognized as a major contribution to an ongoing debate that will continue as long as Shakespeare is read, performed, and studied. Undergraduate libraries should acquire the modernized-spelling and commentary volumes, but cost and the specialized nature of this old-spelling volume recommend it for graduate libraries only.-R.P. Griffin, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 Although there are many myths and mysteries surrounding William Shakespeare, a great deal is actually known about his life. He was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, son of John Shakespeare, a prosperous merchant and local politician and Mary Arden, who had the wealth to send their oldest son to Stratford Grammar School.

At 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, the 27-year-old daughter of a local farmer, and they had their first daughter six months later. He probably developed an interest in theatre by watching plays performed by traveling players in Stratford while still in his youth. Some time before 1592, he left his family to take up residence in London, where he began acting and writing plays and poetry.

By 1594 Shakespeare had become a member and part owner of an acting company called The Lord Chamberlain's Men, where he soon became the company's principal playwright. His plays enjoyed great popularity and high critical acclaim in the newly built Globe Theatre. It was through his popularity that the troupe gained the attention of the new king, James I, who appointed them the King's Players in 1603. Before retiring to Stratford in 1613, after the Globe burned down, he wrote more than three dozen plays (that we are sure of) and more than 150 sonnets. He was celebrated by Ben Jonson, one of the leading playwrights of the day, as a writer who would be "not for an age, but for all time," a prediction that has proved to be true.

Today, Shakespeare towers over all other English writers and has few rivals in any language. His genius and creativity continue to astound scholars, and his plays continue to delight audiences. Many have served as the basis for operas, ballets, musical compositions, and films. While Jonson and other writers labored over their plays, Shakespeare seems to have had the ability to turn out work of exceptionally high caliber at an amazing speed. At the height of his career, he wrote an average of two plays a year as well as dozens of poems, songs, and possibly even verses for tombstones and heraldic shields, all while he continued to act in the plays performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. This staggering output is even more impressive when one considers its variety. Except for the English history plays, he never wrote the same kind of play twice. He seems to have had a good deal of fun in trying his hand at every kind of play.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, all published on 1609, most of which were dedicated to his patron Henry Wriothsley, The Earl of Southhampton. He also wrote 13 comedies, 13 histories, 6 tragedies, and 4 tragecomedies. He died at Stratford-upon-Avon April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later on the grounds of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. His cause of death was unknown, but it is surmised that he knew he was dying.

(Bowker Author Biography)