Rsc Shakespeare [Hardcover]

Willaim Shakespeare (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2007

This handsome "Collector's" edition of the "Complete Works of Shakespeare" was developed in partnership with The Royal Shakespeare Company and is edited by two of the world's leading Shakespeare scholars. This limited printing is published to mark the launch of what we hope will become the classic 21st-century edition of Shakespeare. This is a unique opportunity to purchase a timeless gift which will enrich the bookshelf of anyone who appreciates English Literature and Drama. This single volume is bound in soft brown goatskin, with two gold ribbon markers, matching head and tail-bands and gold lettering on the spine and front cover. Fastened with a decorative clasp, it is delivered tissue wrapped in a bespoke gift box. Inside, the text is clearly presented using a spacious single-column page design on high-quality white paper and is illustrated with photographs of performances chosen by RSC directors. Included are all 38 of Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare's scene from Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems, including, "To the Queen", a poem not edited alongside Shakespeare's poems in the other leading "Complete Works" on the market but now widely agreed to be authored by Shakespeare. Leading the editorial team is Professor Jonathan Bate, who has worked in close collaboration over many years with the RSC. His essays to introduce each play and superb on-page notes explore Shakespeare's plays as they were originally intended - as living theatre to be enjoyed and performed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This new Complete Works from the RSC is a glorious edition of one of the world's most important books. It's the essential reference book for anyone who's ever been in love, felt jealousy, fear, hatred, or desire. All human life is here - and every home should have one.' - Dame Judi Dench 'Timely, original, and beautifully conceived, the RSC edition makes Shakespeare's extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.' - James Shapiro, Professor, Columbia University and prize-winning author of 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare 'Bate provides excellent introductory essays to each play and his terrific introduction, simply and effectively summarising everything you need to know about Shakespeare, man and work, is alone worth buying the edition for.' - The Daily Express 'Thanks to Bate and Rasmussen, we now have a rendering of the Complete Works that, in a rare publishing achievement, would also give complete satisfaction to the author himself.' - Robert McCrum, The Observer 'A magnificent new volume.' - A. N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph 'A triumphant addition to our times.' - Fiona Shaw, The Times 'This outstanding new edition of Shakespeare's plays is the closest yet to the originals ... a new and thoroughly radical edition ... supervised by Jonathan Bate, an outstanding scholar (and author of the best existing biography of Shakespeare) who writes with as much elegance as insight about the making of theatre and the creation of the plays... an impeccably informative introduction gives a comprehensive theatrical, social, political and biographical context to the plays. There are pithy essays, also by Bate, to introduce each play as well as exemplary notes at the foot of each page which translate verbal and topical obscurities ... for actors and directors it will be incomparably useful, but for any curious reader of Shakespeare's plays it provides an invaluable guide to reading them not as novels or dramatic poems, but as they were intended to be read: blueprints for live performance.' - Richard Eyre, The Sunday Telegraph 'Excellent, succinct notes and introductions to each play.' - John Carey, The Sunday Times 'A splendid edition. The general introduction is among the best 50-page guides to Shakespeare you could hope to find, while the short essays prefixed to each play are like the best kind of programme notes - informative, thought-provoking and humane. Marginal notes help readers imagine what's happening onstage ... The RSC's edition tells you all you need to know about the life, but also, vitally, allows you to lose yourself in the wonder of the works.' - Dr Colin Burrow, All Souls College, Oxford University, writing in The Evening Standard 'The paper quality and page design are excellent, and the illustrations in the introductory materials are lavish and well reproduced ...a virtual comet-tail of supplementary materials are to be found at www.rscshakespeare.co.uk - the RSC is certainly the first edition of Shakespeare to provide a link to it's editor's blog... Bate's general introduction to Shakespeare's life, stage and reputation is superb, and the short introductions to individual works, in particular, are among the best of their kind available...they manage to speak about what really matters about the plays to readers who wish, whether they are already familiar with them or not, to come to them freshly. ' - Michael Dobson, writing in The London Review of Books 'This is a handsome and fascinating edition, elegantly set and easy to read.' - The Australian 'A handsome volume, it is printed on fine paper and elegantly designed and printed, with clear typeface. This special edition is bound in black leather; it is a beautiful book that will be a pleasure to own.' - Good Book Guide 'One of the virtues of the approach Bate and Rasmussen have taken is to offer fresh ways of presenting the plays' - Peter Holland, TLS

About the Author

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 2576 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave; Collector's ed edition (June 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230003516
• ISBN-13: 978-0230003514
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.2 x 3.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,943,977 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Version of this EVER!, May 27, 2011

By 

A. Garrett - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RSC Shakespeare (Hardcover)

If can't seem to get into Shakespeare, then this edition is for you. It starts off with a very well-written biography of Shakespeare. Then at the beginning it gives you a summary, character list etc. It is written like stage directions putting the character's name in front of each spoken part; which I find easier to keep up with what's going on. Because it is written by the people who perform the plays, It is written with stage directions, which again, aides the reader to "see" what's going on by visualizing what's going on. This is the best version of the text I have ever read. I checked out to start with and now I am buying a copy because I want to own it.