ARDEN SHAKESPEARE COMPLETE WORKS, THE

'The Complete Arden Shakespeare Collector's Edition' contains the texts of all Shakespeare's plays, including The Two Noble Kinsmen, which has only recently been widely accepted as partly written by Shakespeare, and also the Poems and Sonnets. The play and verse texts are edited by leading academics, in the light of current scholarship on the different versions of the text available. Brief introductions to each play, written specially for this volume by the three Arden Shakespeare General Editors, discuss the date and contemporary context of the play, its position within Shakespeare's oeuvre, and its subsequent performance history. An extensive glossary explains vocabulary which may be unfamiliar to twentieth-century readers. A general introduction, also by the Arden General Editors, gives the reader an overall view of how and why Shakespeare has become such an influential cultural icon, and how perceptions of his work have changed in the intervening four centuries. The introduction summarises the known facts about the dramatist's life, his reading and use of sources, and the nature of theatrical performance during his lifetime. The Complete Arden Shakespeare Collector's Edition offers the sound, reliable, classic edition of Shakespeare's work in an exquisitely presented volume that will appeal to book collectors and Shakespeare lovers throughout the world.