In a groundbreaking piece of scholarly detective work, Professor Honigmann - editor of the forthcoming Arden 3 edition of Othello - uncovers in more detail than any previous study the hidden history of the two early texts of Othello, the Quarto and the Folio. He traces the crucial role played by two men in transforming Shakespeare's almost illegible manuscript to print: Thomas Walkley, the publisher of the Quarto, and Ralph Crane, the scribe who prepared the printer's copy for the Folio. Through careful analysis of particular passages Honigmann exposes the extent to which versions of Othello adopted by editors and widely regarded as fundamentally 'Shakespearean' were profoundly influenced by others than Shakespeare himself. Questioning time-honoured editorial procedures the findings of Texts of Othello have implications for many other of the plays of the Shakespeare canon, and more widely for questions of authorship and the doctrine of the 'better text'.

This groundbreaking piece of scholarly detective work uncovers in more detail than in any other study the hidden history of the two early texts of Othello, the Quarto and the Folio. This has implications for many other Shakespeare plays.

In a groundbreaking piece of scholarly detective work, Professor Honigmann - editor of the forthcoming Arden 3 edition of Othello - uncovers in more detail than any previous study the hidden history of the two early texts of Othello, the Quarto and the Folio. He traces the crucial role played by two men in transforming Shakespeare's almost illegible manuscript to print: Thomas Walkley, the publisher of the Quarto, and Ralph Crane, the scribe who prepared the printer's copy for the Folio. Through careful analysis of particular passages Honigmann exposes the extent to which versions of Othello adopted by editors and widely regarded as fundamentally 'Shakespearean' were profoundly influenced by others than Shakespeare himself. Questioning time-honoured editorial procedures the findings of Texts of Othello have implications for many other of the plays of the Shakespeare canon, and more widely for questions of authorship and the doctrine of the 'better text'.

First published in 1987. The essays in Shakespeare Reproduced offer a political critique of Shakespeare's writings and the uses to which those writings are put Some of the essays focus on Shakespeare in his own time and consider how his plays can be seen to reproduce or subvert the cultural orthodoxies and the power relations of the late Renaissance. Others examine the forces which have produced an overtly political criticism of Shakespeare and of his use in culture. Contributors include: Jean E Howard and Marion O'Connor, Walter Cohen, Don E Wayne, Thomas Cartelli, Peter Erickson, Karen Newman, Thomas Moisan, Michael D Bristol, Thomas Sorge, Jonathan Goldberg, Robert Weimann, Margaret Ferguson.

This new Complete Works marks the completion of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series and includes all of Shakespeare's plays, poems and sonnets, edited by leading international scholars. New to this edition are the 'apocryphal' plays, part-written by Shakespeare: Double Falsehood, Sir Thomas More and King Edward III. The anthology is unique in giving all three extant texts of Hamlet from Shakespeare's time: the first and second Quarto texts of 1603 and 1604-5, and the first Folio text of 1623. With a simple alphabetical arrangement the Complete Works are easy to navigate. The lengthy introductions and footnotes of the individual Third Series volumes have been removed to make way for a general introduction, short individual introductions to each text, a glossary and a bibliography instead, to ensure all works are accessible in one single volume. This handsome Complete Works is ideal for readers keen to explore Shakespeare's work and for anyone building their literary library.

King Lear exists in two different texts: the Quarto (1608) and the Folio (1623). Because each supplies passages missing in the other, for over 200 years editors combined the two to form a single text, the basis for all modern productions. Then in the 1980s a group of influential scholars argued that the two texts represent different versions of King Lear, that Shakespeare revised his play in light of theatrical performance. The two-text theory has since hardened into orthodoxy. Now for the first time in a book-length argument, one of the world’s most eminent Shakespeare scholars challenges the two-text theory. At stake is the way Shakespeare’s greatest play is read and performed. Sir Brian Vickers demonstrates that the cuts in the Quarto were in fact carried out by the printer because he had underestimated the amount of paper he would need. Paper was an expensive commodity in the early modern period, and printers counted the number of lines or words in a manuscript before ordering their supply. As for the Folio, whereas the revisionists claim that Shakespeare cut the text in order to alter the balance between characters, Vickers sees no evidence of his agency. These cuts were likely made by the theater company to speed up the action. Vickers includes responses to the revisionist theory made by leading literary scholars, who show that the Folio cuts damage the play’s moral and emotional structure and are impracticable on the stage.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A new account of Shakespearean tragedy as a response to life in an uncertain world In Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, Rhodri Lewis offers a powerfully original reassessment of tragedy as Shakespeare wrote it—of what drew him toward tragic drama, what makes his tragedies distinctive, and why they matter. After reconstructing tragic theory and practice as Shakespeare and his contemporaries knew them, Lewis considers in detail each of Shakespeare’s tragedies from Titus Andronicus to Coriolanus. He argues that these plays are a series of experiments whose greatness lies in their author’s nerve-straining determination to represent the experience of living in a world that eludes rational analysis. They explore not just our inability to know ourselves as we would like to, but the compensatory and generally unacknowledged fictions to which we bind ourselves in our hunger for meaning—from the political, philosophical, social, and religious to the racial, sexual, personal, and familial. Lewis’s Shakespeare not only creates tragedies that exceed those written before them. Through his art, he also affirms and invigorates the kinds of knowing that are available to intelligent animals like us. A major reevaluation of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Shakespeare’s Tragic Art is essential reading for anyone interested in Shakespeare, tragedy, or the capacity of literature to help us navigate the perplexities of the human condition.

A newly edited edition of The Winter?'s Tale, with a detailed introduction and full commentary.