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Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare) (Mass Market Paperback)

by William Shakespeare (Author) "Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels..." (more)
Key Phrases: Hamlet Acr, Lord Hamlet, Enter Hamlet (more...)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Each edition includes:

• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

• Scene-by-scene plot summaries

• A key to famous lines and phrases

• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

• An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

• Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Essay by Michael Neill

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

About the Author
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Academic Programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, Chair of the Folger Institute, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances and of essays on Shakespeare's plays and on the editing of the plays.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at King's College and the Graduate School of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is the author of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare's plays and was Associate Editor of the annual Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England from 1980 to 1989.

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Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 074347712X
ISBN-13: 978-0743477123
Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,017 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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#1 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > British & Irish > Shakespeare, William
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Hamlet Acr, Lord Hamlet, Enter Hamlet, King Hamlet, Lord Such-a-one, Enter King, Enter Pblonius, Prince of Denmark, Enter Ghost, Young Fortinbras, Enter Horatio, After Hamlet

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 38 books:

Titus Andronicus (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare in Front Matter (1), Front Matter (2), and Back Matter
The Spanish Tragedy (New Mermaids) by Thomas Kyd in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
King Henry (Structural Readers) by William Shakespeare in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
The Merry Wives of Windsor (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
The Question of Hamlet (Galaxy Books) by Harry Levin in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

See all 38 books this book cites

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Customer Reviews

38 Reviews

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
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Average Customer Review

4.5 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic story, and excellent for new reader of Hamlet, March 9, 2005

By	David F. Douthitt "ssrat4" (Beloit, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book has an interesting layout, with definitions of words on the left, with the text of the story on the right. The book layout is the best layout I've seen of any Shakespeare book, and the size is right (you can take it with you!).

The story is legend - even speaking literally - apparently the story of Hamlet hearkens back to even older legends that predate Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Shakespeare is so quotable, and Hamlet is no different - you often find yourself saying "Oh, that's where that comes from!" and its like finding an old friend in a new story. "To be or not to be, that is the question" is one; so is "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" and so is "To thine own self be true". The book even comes with an appendix listing commonly quoted portions of the story and their source.

However, my favorite quote (but not well-known) from the play comes from Hamlet himself, and sums the character up well:

"O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

Get this book, and have a good read! Then get more Shakespeare from the same series: you won't be sorry.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Buy or Not To Buy Should Not Be The Question, December 23, 2003

By	JL1984 (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews

Hamlet is without a doubt Shakespeare's finest work. Aside from being a true romantic and a captivating poet, Shakespeare could also pass as being a psychological genius. Though there are numerous characters in this play, (as in most of shakespeares works) Hamlet is the main focus of the play and it is seen that his internal struggles often overshadow many of the other subplots throughout the story (though in no way does it leave the reader oblivious to the other happenings in the story). The story is about the prince of Denmark whose father was killed by Hamlet's malicious Uncle Claudius who has seized control of the throne after his brother's death. Afterwards, Hamlet undergoes a series of internal conflicts and questions the validity of his father's ghost and is ultimately thought to be insane by those around him who witness his unorthodox actions and bizarre coments. After he is ordered sent away and returns, killing Rozencrantz and Guildenstern aboard the England-bound ship, Hamlet is pushed further into his own realm of "insanity" and soon after helps catapult one of the greatest climatic endings of Shakespeare's works. The final scene of this play is appropriate as it puts an end to the spiral downfall of Hamlet and those around him.

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To thine own self be true ..., August 31, 2006

By	Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is arguably the most famous play ever written in the English language; presenting the world with questions and characters that have been the subject of thespian and scholarly debate ever since the Prince of Denmark's first appearance on the stage of London's Globe Theatre. Probably written and first performed in 1601 (estimates vary between 1600 and 1602), the play draws on Saxo Grammaticus's late 12th/early 13th century chronicle "Gesta Danorum," which includes a popular legend with a similar plot centering around a prince named Amleth; as well as several more contemporaneous sources, primarily Francois de Belleforest's "Histoires Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bandel" (1559-1580), which expands on the story told in the "Gesta Danorum," and a lost play known as the "Ur-Hamlet" (i.e., original "Hamlet"), sometimes also attributed to Shakespeare, but equally likely written by a different author a few decades earlier. Another work frequently cited in this context is 16th century playwright Thomas Kyd's "Spanish Tragedie."

Pursuant to Shakespeare's wishes and like all of his works, "Hamlet" was not immediately published, and the original manuscript did not survive. However, in the absence of copyright laws or other forms of protection of what today would be called the playwright's intellectual property rights, first bootleg copies (so-called quartos) based on transcripts made during or after performances began to appear in 1603. Yet, it would not be until 1623 - seven years after Shakespeare's 1616 death - that his former fellow actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell published 36 of his plays (including this one) in a collection known as the First Folio.

As no print version of any of Shakespeare's plays has a bona fide claim to its author's first-hand blessings, ever since the Bard's death the world is left with numerous questions about his characters' motivations and psychological makeup; first and foremost, in this particular case: who is this Prince of Denmark anyway, and what's driving him - is he a reluctant suicide or reluctant avenger? A Renaissance man? Wrecked by Freudian guilt? Genuinely mad, or merely putting on a clever act of deception? Or is he someone else entirely? - Indeed, we're even left in doubt as to what exactly it was that Shakespeare meant his characters to say, with all attendant interpretative consequences: Does the Prince wish for his "too too sullied" or his "too too solid" flesh to "melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew" in his first major soliloquy (Act I, Scene 2)? Does he really contemplate "the stamp of [that] one defect" which may fatally taint the perception of a man's other virtues, "be they as pure as grace," before meeting his father's ghost (I, 4)? Does Polonius, when sending Reynaldo on a spying mission after Laertes, refer to his scheme as "a fetch of wit" or "a fetch of warrant" (II, 1)? Do Hamlet's musings in "To be, or not to be" (III, 1) concern "enterprises of great pith and moment" or "of great pitch and moment," whose "currents turn awry and lose the name of action" by his doubts? Does or doesn't the sight of the Norwegian army while Hamlet is on his way to England (IV, 4) prompt him, who has so far failed to carry out his purpose, to reflect "How all occasions do inform against me," and conclude his soliloquy with the vow "from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth"?

How you answer any of these questions, and how you consequently view the play's characters, depends in no small part on the text you read. Like all Folger Shakespeare editions, this one is based on what the editors have deemed the "best early printed version," while allowing the reader a unique direct comparison of the available (reliable) versions by including a text essentially combining these versions, with unobtrusive markers characterizing those passages appearing only in one particular version. For "Hamlet," the editors eschewed the play's very first (1603) quarto, which was possibly compiled by a journeyman actor and whose inconsistencies with all subsequent versions (textually as well as plot-wise and even regarding character names) have caused it to be generally considered a "bad" quarto, in favor of the 1604 Second Quarto, which some even believe to be based on Shakespeare's own first draft of the play and which, in any event, while more extensive than the 1623 First Folio (in turn, thought by some to be closest to the version(s) actually produced on the Globe Theatre stage), boasts about as secure a claim of authenticity as the latter. In some instances, the text follows the Second Quarto (Q2) without visually alerting the reader to the differences vis-a-vis the First Folio (F1), thus compelling those more used to the latter version to seek out the extensive end notes to reassure themselves that (in the examples given above) it might indeed be "solid flesh," "warrant," and "pith and moment" (F1) instead of "sullied flesh," "wit," and "pitch and moment" (Q2). In other instances, however, the First Folio's language is given preference over that of the Second Quarto; while crucially, the text also includes all those passages *only* contained in the latter, including the "stamp of one defect" and "bloody thoughts" monologues, whose interpretation has such a direct bearing on many a reader's understanding of Hamlet's character.

The text is amplified by illustrations and annotations for those unfamiliar with 16th century English, scene-by-scene plot summaries, a short biography of Shakespeare, and introductory and concluding essays on this and the Bard's other plays and on Shakespearean theatre, as well as extensive suggestions for further reading, and a key to the play's most famous lines. While it is unlikely that after 400 years of debate any one version, be it in print, on stage or on screen, will be able to generate unanimous acceptance as the "definitive" rendition of this complex play, this is an excellent starting point for an in-depth excursion into the Prince of Denmark's world.

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Hamlet
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Peter Brook's King Lear
Richard III
Julius Caesar

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars the guy who gave Hamlet a one-star review
The guy who gave Hamlet a one-star review is either a tongue-cheek humorist of the first order, or barring that, an absolute idiot.

Published 16 days ago by William Klein

5.0 out of 5 stars Frailty, thy name is "human"
I had previously read translated versions of Hamlet, but I discovered that nothing compares to reading it in the original English. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Medusa

5.0 out of 5 stars A timeless great work that should be read again and again
What can one possibly say about the greatest literary work every written in the English language? Just this. Read it again. Read more

Published 7 months ago by John Martin

4.0 out of 5 stars A truly BLOODY play
"Hamlet" is considered, by some, to be Shakespeare's best work. I am not of that school of thought. I've read it. I've watched it played on a stage. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Norman Strojny

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatness
shakespeare has done it again... and thanks to amazon i was allowed to fully enjoy this great masterpiece

Published 12 months ago by ingrid wacovavich

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to read Shakespeare its has to be The new folger Library
If you ever thought about reading Shakespeare but was turned off or intimidated by the old english, not so with the new folger editions. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Steven Alonte

4.0 out of 5 stars Review
Hamlet is a book written by William Shakespeare. The book is very thrilling; it keeps you on your feet throughout the read. Read more

Published 18 months ago by George H. Rolfs

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter Tripe
What kind of idiot writes this tripe? This is allegedly a "Play" by some long-dead "Master".

Well, let me tell, you: it's boring and derivative. Read more

Published 21 months ago by James M. O'Connell

3.0 out of 5 stars Methinks it is like a weasel.
I'm going to take some hits for this (by rabid Shakespeare fans mostly), but this play, whether read in a straightforward manner, or analyzed to the hilt, is just somewhat better... Read more

Published 22 months ago by Patrick W. Crabtree

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Shakespearen Play Ever!
Hamlet is a must read...end of review.
No, seriously who can't pass up...
"to be or not to be that is the question. Read more

Published 22 months ago by pathseldomtraveled

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