Arden Shakespeare

Updated on Dec 06, 2023

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Originally published 1998

Similar The Oxford Shakespeare, Early texts of Shakesp, Complete Works of Shakespeare, First Folio, A Lover's Complaint

Arden shakespeare a history

The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been three distinct series of the Arden Shakespeare over the past century, and the third series has not yet been completed. Arden was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary, however the primary reference of the enterprise's title is named after the Forest of Arden, in which Shakespeare's As You Like It is set.

Arden shakespeare commentary notes

First Series

The first series was published by Methuen. Its first publication was Edward Dowden's edition of Hamlet, published in 1899. Over the next 25 years, the entire canon of Shakespeare was edited and published. The original editor of the Arden Shakespeare was William James Craig (1899-1906), succeeded by R. H. Case (1909-1944). The text of the Arden Shakespeare, First series, was based on the 1864 "Globe" or Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works, edited by William George Clark and John Glover, as revised in 1891-93.

The list of the first series is as follows:

Second Series

The second series began in 1946, with a new group of editors freshly re-editing the plays, and was completed in the 1980s. It was published by Methuen in both hardback and paperback. Later issues of the paperbacks featured cover art by the Brotherhood of Ruralists. The Second Series was edited by Una Ellis-Fermor (1946–58); Harold F. Brooks (1952–82), Harold Jenkins (1958–82) and Brian Morris (1975–82). Unlike the First Series, where each volume was based on the same textual source (The Globe Shakespeare), the individual editors of each volume of the Second Series were responsible for editing the text of the play in that edition.

The complete list of the second series is as follows:

Third Series

The third series of the Arden Shakespeare began to be edited during the 1980s, with publication starting in the 1990s.

The first editions in this series were published by Routledge, before moving to Thomson. They then moved to Cengage Learning. In December 2008, the series returned to Methuen, becoming part of Methuen Drama, its original publisher. From February 2013, the titles have appeared under the Bloomsbury imprint.

The editions in the third series are published very much in line with the traditions established by the Arden Shakespeare; however, editions in this series tend to be much thicker than those of the first and second series, with more explanatory notes and much longer introductions. One unusual aspect of this series is its edition of Hamlet, which presents the play in two separate volumes. The first, released in 2006, contains an edited text of the Second Quarto (1604–05), with passages found only in the First Folio included in an appendix, while the supplementary second volume, released a year later, contains both the text of the First Quarto (sometimes called the "bad" quarto) of 1603, and of the First Folio of (1623).

The general editors for this series are Richard Proudfoot; Ann Thompson of King's College London; David Scott Kastan of Yale University; and H. R. Woudhuysen of the University of Oxford.

Editions

What follows is a list of editions published in the third series thus far, or which are due to be published by early 2017.

King Henry V, edited by T. W. Craik (1995)

Antony and Cleopatra, edited by John Wilders (1995)

Titus Andronicus, edited by Jonathan Bate (1995)

Othello, edited by E. A. J. Honigmann (1996)

The Two Noble Kinsmen, edited by Lois Potter (1996)

King Lear, edited by R. A. Foakes (1997)

Shakespeare's Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones (1997)

Troilus and Cressida, edited by David Bevington (1998)

Love's Labour's Lost, edited by H. R. Woudhuysen (1998)

Julius Caesar, edited by David Daniell (1998)

King Henry VI Part 2, edited by Ronald Knowles (1999)

The Merry Wives of Windsor, edited by Giorgio Melchiori (1999)

The Tempest, edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan (1999)

King Henry VI Part 1, edited by Edward Burns (2000)

King Henry VIII, edited by Gordon McMullan (2000)

King Henry VI Part 3, edited by John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen (2001)

King Richard II, edited by Charles R. Forker (2002)

King Henry IV Part 1, edited by David Scott Kastan (2002)

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, edited by William C. Carroll (2004)

Pericles, edited by Suzanne Gossett (2004)

Much Ado About Nothing, edited by Claire McEachern (2005)

Hamlet (containing the text of 1604; see above), edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (2006)

As You Like It, edited by Juliet Dusinberre (2006)

Shakespeare's Poems, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones and H. R. Woudhuysen (2007)

Twelfth Night, edited by Keir Elam (2008)

Timon of Athens, edited by Anthony B. Dawson and Gretchen E. Minton (2008)

King Richard III, edited by James R. Siemon (2009)

The Taming of the Shrew, edited by Barbara Hodgdon (2010)

The Winter's Tale, edited by John Pitcher (2010)

The Merchant of Venice, edited by John Drakakis (2011)

Romeo and Juliet, edited by René Weis (2012)

Coriolanus, edited by Peter Holland (2013)

Macbeth, edited by Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason (2015)

King Henry IV Part 2, edited by James C. Bulman (2016)

The Comedy of Errors, edited by Kent Cartwright (2016)

Cymbeline, edited by Valerie Wayne (2017)

Currently, editions of four canonical plays remain uncompleted:

All's Well That Ends Well, edited by Helen Wilcox.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri.

King John, edited by John Tobin and Jesse Lander.

Measure for Measure, edited by A. R. Braunmuller.

The Third Series also includes one supplementary volume:

Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623, edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (2007)

Apocrypha

The third series is also notable to publishing single-volume editions of certain plays which traditionally form part of the so-called Shakespeare Apocrypha, but for which there is considered good evidence of Shakespeare having at least been part author. Two apocryphal plays have so far been published in this manner, with one more planned for release in the near future.

Double Falsehood, edited by Brean Hammond (2010)

Sir Thomas More, edited by John Jowett (2011)

King Edward III, edited by Richard Proudfoot and Nicola Bennett (2017)

Revised Editions

Due to the long period of time over which the series has been published, many of the editions listed above have been (or are planned to be) re-issued in revised editions, The first - Shakespeare's Sonnets - was published in 2010, fifteen years after the series began. Thus far, seven editions have been reissued in revised form.

Shakespeare's Sonnets (2010)

The Tempest (2011)

The Two Noble Kinsmen (2015)

Troilus and Cressida (2015)

Much Ado About Nothing (2016)

Othello (2016)

Hamlet (2016)

Fourth Series

In March 2015, Bloomsbury Academic named Peter Holland of the University of Notre Dame, Zachary Lesser of the University of Pennsylvania, and Tiffany Stern of the University of Oxford as general editors of the Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series.

Arden Early Modern Drama

In 2009, the Arden Shakespeare launched a companion series, entitled "Arden Early Modern Drama". The series follows the formatting and scholarly style of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series, but shifts the focus onto less well-known English Renaissance playwrights, primarily the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline periods (although the plays Everyman and Mankind hail from the reign of King Henry VII).

The general editors for this series are Suzanne Gossett of Loyola University Chicago; John Jowett of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham; and Gordon McMullan of King's College London.

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, edited by Leah S. Marcus (2009)

Everyman and Mankind, edited by Douglas Bruster and Eric Rasmussen (2009)

Philaster by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, edited by Suzanne Gossett (2009)

The Renegado by Philip Massinger, edited by Michael Neill (2010)

'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford, edited by Sonia Massai (2011)

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary, edited by Ramona Wray (2012)

The Island Princess by John Fletcher, edited by Clare McManus (2013)

The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, edited by Clara Calvo and Jesús Tronch (2013)

A Jovial Crew by Richard Brome, edited by Tiffany Stern (2014)

The Witch of Edmonton by Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley, edited by Lucy Munro (2016).

Complete Works

Arden has also published a Complete Works of Shakespeare, which reprints editions from the second and third series.

Critical Literature

The Arden Shakespeare has also published a number of series of literary and historical criticism to accompany the Arden Shakespeare Third Series and Arden Early Modern Drama imprints.

References

Arden Shakespeare Wikipedia

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