The First Quarto of Othello (The New Cambridge Shakespeare: The Early Quartos) [Hardcover]

William Shakespeare (Author), Scott McMillin (Editor)

Book Description

Series: The New Cambridge Shakespeare: The Early Quartos | Publication Date: August 27, 2001

This is the first modernized and edited version of the 1622 text of Othello. It consists of a detailed introduction, quarto text, select collation and textual notes and is an important book for scholars in Shakespeare and Elizabethan-Jacobean drama, with wide ramifications for other Shakespeare textual studies and for students of early theatre history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[McMillin's] challenging introduction makes a keen case for rethinking not only the relation between the two printed texts and their manuscript progenitors but also for the relation among writing, performance and print in the early modern theater." Studies in English Literature

"This new edition, using modernized spelling and offering substantive textual and collation notes, makes the First Quarto (Q1) accessible for study or performance in nearly original form. Essential for theater practicioners and historians as wel as students and scholars of Shakespeare." Choice

"There have been published facsimilies, but Scott McMillin's The First Quarto of Othello is the first modernized and edited version of the 1622 original.... citations in the introduction are plentiful and clearly documented.... university students of Shakespeare and of textual bibliography will find editions in this Early Quartos series both accessible and illuminating." Sixteenth Century Journal

Book Description

This is the first modernized and edited version of the 1622 Othello. It consists of a detailed introduction, quarto text, select collation and textual notes and is an important book for scholars in Shakespeare and Elizabethan-Jacobean drama, with wide ramifications for other Shakespeare textual studies and for students of early theatre history.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (August 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521562570
• ISBN-13: 978-0521562577
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,231,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.