Complete Works

The Complete Arden Shakespeare , published for the first time in hardback in 1998, is now available in an updated paperback edition. The Complete Arden Shakespeare contains the texts of all Shakespeare's plays, edited by leading Shakespeare scholars for the renowned Arden Shakespeare series. The paperback edition includes eight newly revised playtexts as published in the Arden Third Series since 1998.A general introduction by the three General Editors of the ongoing Arden Shakespeare series 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.Brief introductions to each play, written specially for this volume by the Arden 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 modern readers.

Includes The Two Noble Kinsmen, the Poems, and the Sonnets.
Brief contextual introductions to each play.
Glossary with about 400 entries.

About the Authors

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon where his father was a prosperous glover. His early life is obscure, but he married Anne Hathaway in 1682 with whom he had two children. By 1592 he was establishing himself in London, and over the next twenty years he wrote thirty-seven plays-and contributed to many more-was a prolific poet, and was taken up by several influential patrons. His Sonnets were first printed in 1609 by George Eld for Thomas Thorpe. The identity of Mr. W.H. to whom the Sonnets are dedicated remains a mystery, as does the identity of the aristocratic youth in the Sonnets and the enigmatic Dark Lady.

Richard Proudfoot is Emeritus Professor and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies in the University of London. He is the author of Shakespeare: Text, Stage, and Cannon and numerous essays on Shakespeare. He is a general editor of the Arden Shakespeare.

Ann Thompson is Professor of English Language and Literature and Head of the School of Humanities at King's College London. She has edited Hamlet for Arden and The Taming of the Shrew for Cambridge University Press. Her other publications include Shakespeare's Chaucer, Shakespeare, Meaning and Metaphor (with John O. Thompson), and Women Reading Shakespeare, 1660-1900 (with Sasha Roberts). She has also published widely on editing Shakespeare and Shakespeare's language. She is one of the general editors of the Arden Shakespeare.

David Scott Kastan is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, New York. His publications include Shakespeare and the Book, Shakespeare after Theory, and Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time. In addition, he has edited A Companion to Shakespeare, A New History of Early English Drama (with John Cox), and Staging the Renaissance (with Peter Stallybrass). He is one of the general editors of the Arden Shakespeare.