This collection contains the texts of all Shakespeare's plays, including "The Two Noble Kinsmen", which has only recently been widely accepted as partly written by Shakespeare, and also the Poems and Sonnets. The play and verse texts are edited by leading academics, in the light of scholarship on the different versions of the text available. Brief introductions to each play, written specially for this volume by the three Arden Shakespeare General Editors, discuss the date and contemporary context of the play, its position within Shakespeare's oeuvre, and its subsequent performance history. An extensive glossary explains vocabulary which may be unfamiliar to 20th-century readers. A general introduction, also by the Arden General Editors, gives the reader an overall view of how and why Shakespeare has become such an influential cultural icon, and how perceptions of his work have changed in the intervening four centuries. The introduction summarizes the known facts about the dramatist's life, his reading and use of sources, and the nature of theatrical performance during his lifetime.

Author Biography

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English dramatist, poet, and actor, generally regarded as the greatest playwright of all time. David Scott Kastan is the George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, USA. Professor Richard Proudfoot served as Senior General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare for 35 years, until his retirement from King's in 1999. In 2001 The Arden Shakespeare published Proudfoot's Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Canon a critical overview of the scholarly achievements made in the field of Shakespeare studies by the end of the twentieth century. ANN THOMPSON is Professor of English and Director of the London Shakespeare Centre and King's College London