Modern editions

I haven't seen a thread specifically on this topic, but forgive me if I've missed it.

I've been buying modern editions from charity shops and eBay, so I have a mix of different publishers' editions —

Signet Classic
Yale University Press
Oxford World's Classics
Third Arden
RSC
New Cambridge Shakespeare
Penguin

Some of the variation in quality is obviously due to the respective editors, but the publishers have made choices as well, and that's what I wanted to invite opinion on.

For example:

-Signet includes essays by different authors. I like that.

-I appreciate scholarly editions (Oxford, Cambridge and Arden are scholarly, the Ardens of course openly so; Cambridge leans student-y). I want to know about an editor's textual choices; I want a dramatic interpretation; I want to know about sources. I am sometimes let down by incomplete performance history. And my As You Like It (ed. Dusinberre) was over-commented, many of the comments daft.

-My two Yale UP editions are awful. The text has footnote numbers; the notes are superficial; there are typos; the introductions are uninteresting; no explanation of textual choices at all. If these are directed at the high school market, then maybe I shouldn't complain.

-My Penguins drove me mad with their endnotes. I was almost in tears looking up the meanings for the all the witticisms in Love's Labour's Lost.

-The RSCs are strong on performance history, and contain synopses. Having interviews with directors and actors is wonderful. This is a comparatively new series.

What I want more than anything is some dramatic interpretation.

The Norton Shakespeare, a complete works based on The Oxford Edition, 2nd ed. (3419 pages) is said to be a teaching edition that adds considerable resources to the scholarly Oxford from Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, "the most far-reaching and innovative revision of the original canon in centuries."

It has extensive introductory essays by Stephen Greenblatt and Andrew Gurr, and appendices which include excerpts from Robert Greene's Groat's Worth of Witte, Shakespeare's will, writings by contemporaries like Ben Jonson, etc. Each play (poetry, too) is headed by another essay. The plays themselves have single word definitions at the end of applicable lines, and modest footnotes, much terser than in the Third Arden.

There are three versions of King Lear, The folio version, a quarto, and a conflated edition that is said to be the most performed version. Other plays have some variant text, too. Hamlet, for example, is primarily from the folio, but some passages from 2Q are included for comparison where they would normally occur, indented and in a different typeface. Some minor text changes from Oxford have been made after consulting with the editors of that volume. For example, Henry IV, Part 1 in Oxford uses the original "Oldcastle" for the character that was later changed to Falstaff. Norton uses Falstaff throughout.

The one thing lacking that may interest you is dramatic interpretation.

>2 Podras.:
Many thanks for that. I do find textual variants interesting (they're important in my own field, antiquity). I'd guess that having a general editor would impose some needed moderation on the commentary: editors who get carried away with their own research interests hurts any general edition.

>2 Podras.:

Just checking their website and I note there's now a 3rd edition on the way, which includes online resources.

However, the website is annoyingly uninformative about the multiplicity of volumes it's offering.

Am I right in my initial assumption that the cheaper 'International Student Edition' versions of each edition simply mean soft cover? Or are there other differences?

Then you click on the 2nd edition (http://www.wwnorton.co.uk/book.html?id=873) and there are EIGHT volumes, including those two versions of the whole thing, plus a Vol. 1 and a Vol. 2., plus an assortment of individually-titled volumes, with no indication of the differences or how they all fit together.

Very confusing.

ETA - Oops! Should have checked the pages: 'International Student ...' and ordinary have exactly the same number so, presumably, are identical texts ...

>3 messpots: >4 alaudacorax:

Thanks for the info about the upcoming 3rd Edition.

Here is another web page for The Norton Shakespeare, 3rd Edition that may shed some light about the various versions (click on Formats). The hardback edition coming out in March is a single-volume complete version. The rest, all paperbacks being released in August, divide the complete works into multiple volumes. Two volumes divide them between Early Plays and Later Plays, and four volumes contain the Comedies, Histories, Romances, and Tragedies respectively. There isn't anything about an International Student Edition.

The 3rd Ed. contents are listed here. The Andrew Gerr introduction is gone, but from the title, it looks like the Holger Schott Syme essay covers the same ground. The Textual Introduction essay is new, and the Appendix contains numerous additions. The order of the plays and poems is a little different, but since the order in the 2nd Ed. was supposed to be the order of composition, the changes may be due to updated scholarship. The only other change I can see from the contents is that a one-pager about Love's Labors Won is gone. It may have been folded into the introductory material for Much Ado About Nothing which many feel is an alternate title for the same play.

I'm intrigued about recently emerging evidence that some lines in Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, a possible precursor of Hamlet, were written by Shakespeare. Perhaps that is something for a future edition or an update to the digital companion of this one.

I had to tote the Norton one-volume effort about for the Open University Shakespeare module - and in particular all through the week-long residential. It's a blooming great door-step and a half of a book, even though the paper is a bit flimsy, which I wouldn't recommend for easy reading. As others have said it also lacks much by way of performance histories and you might want to look at the Shakespeare in Production series for that. But for those looking to invest in a relatively cheap single volume there is much to be said for it.

There is, however, nothing whatever to be said for Love's Labour's Won being an alternate title for Much Ado - unless of course one was trying to sell a flawed directorial concept for the current RSC season.

>6 TheHumbleOne:

I got the bit about Love's Labours Won possibly being an alternate title for Much Ado About Nothing from elsewhere--not Norton. I don't remember where, but this Wikipedia article mentions the possibility.

Yes, The Norton Shakespeare is huge and heavy. Fortunately, I don't have to lug it about anywhere other than the house, but when I read it (frequently), I have to lay it on a flat surface. It's definitely not a laptop book. It has a slip case to support its spine. If it didn't, it's weight would likely pull it apart over time if shelved upright.

I don't find the very thin pages to be fragile, though I tend to be pretty careful with my books in any case. A little effort is needed when turning pages to assure that just one gets turned.

For me, the content and scholarship trumps whatever physical inconvenience it has.

I personally have no use for a complete works; it's just a lifestyle thing. I spend time with a single work -- the play, the companion material -- and then devote some time to performances, movies, operas, etc. But I'd guess that if I were "studying Shakespeare" I'd feel differently and want a complete works.