The Complete Pelican Shakespeare [Paperback]

Stephen Orgel (Editor), A. R. Braunmuller (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 1754 pages
• Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965455122
• ISBN-13: 978-0965455121
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still the Best, November 26, 2002

By 

Wuddus (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Pelican Shakespeare (Hardcover)

The two reviews below (as of this posting) are so complete and useful that I won't bother repeating what they've so articulately said. Both of them, however, express disappointment with the paucity of introductory material in the Pelican. Initially, I agreed with them. After the fullness of biography and background in the previous edition--not to mention the wonderful illustrations of the Globe by C. Walter Hodge--the cursory intros in the new Pelican took me as rather much of a letdown. (And why weren't the brief essays signed?) Part of the fun of any new Shakespeare, after all, is in the editorial bells and whistles!

On further thought and reading, however, I've changed my mind. The introductions to the individual plays and poetry continue to be full, thoughtful, and elegant (especially John Hollander's essay on the sonnets), and the annotations are clear and well-placed. The brief essays at the beginning of the volume provide only the essential background that the individual intros really can't. In that context, their "just the facts, ma'm" approach is refreshing and bound to be less intimidating to the first-time reader. I mean, how many students have been put off Shakespeare by the lengthiness and detail of preferatory material? Don't all the bells and whistles of other volumes imply to the fearful that one has to become a scholar simply to enjoy the show? One does need help, of course, but not a scholastic cloud. (The Norton is especially horrifying in this vein; woe to the 101 student whose instructor has chosen this for the class.)

The new Pelican does seem somehow "thinner" than its predecessor--but we might just as well say "sleeker." This is still by far the friendliest one-volume Shakespeare out there. In twenty years, this will be just as beloved as the first edition!

136 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, the one to buy, October 23, 2002

By 

Stanley Hauer (Hattiesburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Complete Pelican Shakespeare (Hardcover)

Like many English majors in the sixties, I grew up reading this edition. The old one had a distinguished roster of editors and was pleasant to hold and read. In the latter category this new edition is a noble successor: clear type, full names of characters (no more "1 Serv."), and notes indicated by line numbers. This new edition fails however in its skimpy (9 pages!) of introductory matter and a masthead of editors who are fairly obscure. Still, I would award the plume to this volume for the first-time reader who wants a complete Shakespeare. The pleasant appearance that I mentioned above is important--we want a volume easy to handle and read. The editing is conservative and non-controversial (no more of the Oxford/Norton kinky titles--"The First Part of the Contention," sheesh--that's Henry VI, Part 2 to us plebians). And it's not as bulky as the power-lifter's Riverside and other editions. To sum up: if you have in your family or acquaintance a budding Shakespearean, this is still the one to buy. Seeing this book in the shop was like greeting an old friend. I look forward to hundreds of wonderful hours with it.

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Complete Shakespeare..., August 7, 2006

By 

Enamorato (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Pelican Shakespeare (Hardcover)

The Pelican Shakespeare is oftentimes overlooked in a very crowded field of complete Shakespeare editions. It faces stiff competition from the likes of Norton (who have more or less monopolized all of literature for college students these days), Bevington, and Riverside. I own all three, but I find myself coming back to Pelican.

At first look, one can definately see why a past reviewer calls The New Pelican Shakespeare "sleeker." It is considerably more compact than the aforementioned heavyweights, and more brief compared even to the first edition. The paperback release, in particular, is ideal for students who need an edition to carry to class (it weighs less than a standard textbook).

The reason for this is that, unlike Norton in particular, the annotations throughout the text itself is relatively light. This is pretty refreshing when you just want to get to the plays. The quality of these notes is exemplary. They are cohesive, unassuming, and enlightening. As with the Bevington, line numbers are marked where there is an accompanying footnote - something that saves the reader from having to count between markings and from wondering whether there is any footnote at all for the present line. Also, general introductory material (a biography of Shakespeare, an essay on Elizabethan theatre, and an essay on the text of his plays) is kept to a bare minimum. These brief essays amount to less than ten pages. This is pretty modest compared to the likes of Riverside or Bevington. I'm not too fond of humongous all-encompassing introductions, and professors usually suppliment the reading with an external book instead: something like Russ MacDonald's "Bedford Companion to Shakespeare" for English students or Michael York and Adrian Brine's "A Shakespearean Actor Prepares" for theatre students.

I was actually taken aback by how much revision was done to the original Pelican Shakespeare - in fact, just about everything here is new: new introductions, new annotations, and even newly constructed texts themselves. (Example: In the first edition, Juliet's line in Act II: Scene 2 of "Romeo and Juliet" reads: "That which we call a rose, by any other name..." The new edition reads "That which we call a rose by any other word..." Both editions, though, include footnotes indicating the variance.) I do kind of miss the old first edition (edited by Alfred Harbage). It was a formidible, scholarly, and easy-to-use edition. In particular I will miss it's introductions to each individual play. The introductions here are by no means inferior - they are eloquent, informative, and well-researched. I may have just become attached to the more stately essays in the previous edition.

The texts themselves are authoritative, conservatively edited and beautifully presented - standard modern spelling, readable and clear typeface in two columns. "King Lear" is here in three versions. The 1608 Quarto and 1623 Folio texts are presented in columns juxtaposed side-by-side (makes for convenient comparison), followed by a conflated text (the one from the old Harbage edition, slightly edited) that combines the best of both worlds. Ample black-and-white illustrations (as well as attractive fascimiles of the first few pages of the First Folio and Quartos) compliment the edition. Overall, the Pelican Shakespeare is an edition designed with the everyday reader in mind. Students will find it a streamlined, well-designed edition for serious study.