Customer Reviews

The Riverside Shakespeare (2 vol)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While I sympathize somewhat with the review below -- the introductions do quibble a bit over the differences between Folio and Quarto versions, the exact source material etc. -- I found this to be an excellent version of the complete works. The essay before each play is very helpful toward understanding the literary context of the play--they _do_ talk about the characters and the action of the play, in a way that nicely complements the text. The illustrations (some black and white, some color) are also interesting and helpful. The book contains both a general introduction, which is accessible, if slightly daunting, to a reader who might not be intimately familiar with all of the plays, serving to excite interest at least. It also contains an essay on 20th century Shakespeare criticism, which introduces many of the newer movements in Shakespeare criticism that are not included in the general introduction (which focuses more on the Elizabethan historical period, and more immediate reactions to the plays). The footnotes, while they are not indicated on the line itself, are located on the same page. In looking at several other editions, I found that footnotes were sometimes actually endnotes--i.e. located in one section at the end of the play, which would be very disruptive to reading. Happily, this is not the case in this edition.

The book, as the title claims, includes all of Shakespeare's plays, Sonnets, and poems. The appendices include many other interesting tidbits that help shine some light on old Billy's life, including his will, in which he enigmatically bequeathed a "second-best bed" to his wife. Other documents are included, often with explanations to help the reader to understand (as the documents are printed verbatim, the Elizabethan spelling and punctuation is a slight impediment).

Overall, I found this to be the best of the paperback and hardcover editions I examined.

This one-volume edition of Shakespeare's works is the most complete I found on the market: it includes "The Two Noble Kinsmen", Shakespeare's addition to "Sir Thomas More" (with photographical reproduction of the pages believed to be in his handwrite), the currently hot debated poem "A Funeral Elegy by W. S." and, above all, "The Reign of King Edward III", a new play recently accepted in the canon by many authoritative editors (Arden, Cambridge, Oxford). The text of each work is carefully edited and accompanied by helpful glossarial notes, a textual discussion with short bibliography, and an impressive collation which allows the reader to find variant readings and emendations. An exhaustive critical introduction precedes each play and poem, dealing with authorship, date, sources, textual differences between quarto and folio texts, and of course the principal thematic issues. What makes this a superb edition - and indeed a real "companion" to Shakespeare studies! - is the great amount of subsidiary material, including a general introduction - focusing on Shakespeare's life, art, language, style, and on the Elizabethan historical and theatrical background - and a series of useful essays on various themes: critical approaches to the plays and poems, philological issues, history of the plays on the stage, television and cinema. There are also many interesting documents, synoptic tables, glossaries, indexes, illustrated tables (both coloured and b&w) , the reproduction of the introductory pages of the First Folio of 1623, and a rich bibliography. I personally consider this book a must have for every teacher, scholar, or simply amateur of the greatest of all poets. Buy it!

I would not myself prescribe this edition if I needed to choose one for, say, a year-long course on Shakespeare, but it is respectable and valuable nonetheless, and I have never minded my students using it. In comparison to the Norton, it is far more sensible, level-headed, and sharper in its selection of what is relevant to the needs of most readers. It offers help in a way that for example the Oxford unannotated Complete Works does not. The level of scholarship is usually very sound, in all areas. However, the edition lacks the required intellectual life, to my mind, which it should have and which I find in David Bevington's edition (and, despite some perversities, in the Norton); it is in some ways a bit perfunctory, unenterprising, and not sufficiently incisive in its insights. This is also an edition which at times unduly tends to favour the interests of academics over those of ordinary readers. The text, notably, preserves a number of features which are quite unnecessarily archaic to a modern reader. Who benefits from being faced with such spellings as "bumbast" rather than "bombast"? The introductions are more often useful or predictable than truly engaging, and the explanatory notes are in several places not as informative as they should be. Even so, this is an edition of considerable merit, and one that those who for some mysterious reason do not wish to buy David Bevington's excellent edition would probably be best served by. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

I have had my Riverside (1974 edn.) since college and still use it constantly. I can't break myself of it because the text is so good: the editor, G. B. Evans, is very cautious about changing the texts and even retains a few original spellings, so it feels very Elizabethan. Another good text is Pelican/Penguin, but it's expensive to buy all those individual volumes. Drawbacks: as another reviewer says, the notes are hard to keep track of, and the thing is so darned bulky! / I saw the new 2-volume edition in a bookstore recently and was disappointed. Most of the pages are photographically reproduced from the first edition, but they look like photocopies rather than the real thing. At least the smaller volumes might be easier to handle.

I am taking a Shakespeare class (or reading group, if you will) and this text was required. Since I already have two complete sets of Shakespeare's works, which I paid considerably less for, I didn't see a need for this text. Well, I was wrong! I decided to buy it since the reviews proved that this edition may be more informative then the less expensive editions I already own. That was very true to form! I found the introduction of the book, and of all of the works, very informative; and most of all, I found the glossary at the bottom of each page to be extremely valuable. These are features which my other volumes did not include and it was worth every extra penny for this volume. I would highly recommend it!


Tammie
Germantown, MD

I bought this edition after using the Norton in my last semester Shakespeare class, and have found my reading of the plays for this semester's class much more enjoyable. The format is beautiful: the pages are thicker, lie flatter, and hold more content. Unlike the Norton, whose footnote numbers interrupt the reading of the text, forcing you to lose momemtum, the Riverside's are unobtrusive, available if you need them and when you want them. The introductions are prescient, interesting, and well-written. The text itself is more accurate, also. Harold Bloom, for example, in his introduction to The Invention of The Human, says he uses the Riverside and Arden, and that the Oxford (upon which the Norton is based) tries to publish the worst possible poetry. This I found amusing, if not also accurate.

This book has useful (though not terribly complete) introductions to each of the plays, focusing mainly on comparing various Folio and Quarto editions of the plays. It also contains some nice pictures, though I wish the Latin in them were translated or shown at a legible size. It has very nice appendicies nothing the first appearances of all the characters in the plays, and a timeline showing what historical events were occuring in relation to works written by Shakespeare and events in his life, as well as to plays by other playwrights and other literature produced at that time. The pages are relatively thin and the print small. However (this referes to the '74 edition, maybe they have changed it since then) the plays are a royal pain to read. The pages are about a foot high and the notes are at the bottom. There is no marking to indicate whether a line has a note, so the reader must read a line or two, glance down at the notes, read another few lines, look at the notes again, and so on. Were it not for this major annoyance, this would be a very good (and very complete) edition of Shakespeare's works.

As an actor, director, and scholar, I must say that The Riverside Shakespeare is the most complete Shakespeare collection on the market. It is an excellent buy for anyone who will be studying the plays in depth, since it gives background in the introduction as well as extensive notes to the text. This text clarifies some tricky questions about the Bard's works. Its value lies in the careful attention to detail, but this does mean that the reader looking for specific elements will have to sort through a wealth of information -- not necessarily a bad thing, yes? I highly recommend this to anyone serious about Shakespeare.

When I was looking to buy a complete works I was drawn to ARDEN. Being a performer, the Arden scripts were those that helped me with my personal dramaturgy the most. However when I went to look inside a "complete works" published by Arden, I was thoroughly dissappointed. They had zero footnotes, and very little commentary on the pieces. That is when a woman bumped into me and told me if I were looking for a complete works, I should go with Riverside's second edition. I was in the Tudor Guild bookshop in Ashland, Oregon at the time. This woman told me that this edition, is the same edition that Libby Apel (Head of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) gives to all of her friends as a gift.

It has full footnotes for translation, and language comparison. It also has a short commentary before each play and poem describing the time in which it was wrote, and for what reason. This came in handy when I was mounting a 10 minute production of Richard III. Also in parenthesis are specific words that may have been changed over the years. One may revert back to the appendicies to see what the word might have been in the first, second and third folio text. If you are looking to study a singular play, I would truly reccommend buying them on their own through Arden Shakespeare in the Second or Third Editions. However, If you are looking to own the complete works I would suggest the Riverside Shakespeare second Edition. I now own 3 complete works anthologies, and this one (my first) is still the best.

I prescribed this edition for the Shakespeare course I taught in the University of the West Indies nearly 30 years ago. James Maxwell as editor guaranteed a reliable text, and I was astonished by the quantity of useful supporting material. One of my students - at that time very nationalistic and hostile to relics of colonialism - objected profoundly to a course concentrating on one author, and an English author at that. Also to the price and cumbersomeness of the prescribed text. As an able student she subsequently went on to complete her MA at Leeds and her Ph D at Yale. A couple of years back she was telephoning me in desperation to know where she could replace the book - now worn to pieces, and long one of her most prized possessions. She could not praise too highly the excellence of the Riverside as the most useful complete Shakespeare onthe market. Which was my own view, too.