Short description A Concise Companion to Shakespeare and the Text introduces the early editions, editing practices, and publishing history of Shakespeare's plays and poems, and examines their influence on bibliographic studies as a whole. Written by leading scholars in the field, this comprehensive text examines the history of Shakespeare's works in their subsequent editions, as well as the theories and practicalities of working with the texts. The first single-volume book to provide an accessible and authoritative introduction to Shakespearean bibliographic studies, this succinct text is an excellent resource.
From the contents Notes on Contributors.
Acknowledgments.
Note on Texts.
Introduction: What Happens in Hamlet? (Andrew Murphy).
Part I Histories of the Books.
1 The Publishing Trade in Shakespeare's Time (Helen Smith).
2 Reading and Authorship: The Circulation of Shakespeare 1590-1619 (Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier).
3 Shakespeare Writ Small: Early Single Editions of Shakespeare's Plays (Thomas L. Berger).
4 The Life of the First Folio in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Anthony James West).
Part II Theories of Editing.
5 The Birth of the Editor (Andrew Murphy).
6 The Science of Editing (Paul Werstine).
7 Editing Shakespeare in a Postmodern Age (Leah S. Marcus).
8 Shakespeare and the Electronic Text (Michael Best).
Part III Practicalities.
9 Working with the Text: Editing in Practice (David Bevington).
10 Working with the Texts: Differential Readings (Sonia Massai).
11 Mapping Shakespeare's Contexts: Doing Things with Databases (Neil Rhodes).
