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The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to readers worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series, edited by an expert international team, includes all Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and poems, presented in attractively designed volumes. • Modern-spelling texts have been freshly established by each editor according to modern scholarly principles, distinguishing carefully between alternative quarto and Folio readings • Lively introductions provide information on the date of composition, the theatrical and political context, sources, themes, language, critical reception and performance history • Informative illustrations give life to each play and cast light on a wide spectrum of historical, social and theatrical issues. Recreations of Shakespeare's stage and photographs from recent productions are included• Valuable commentary at the foot of each page explains word-meaning and allusions. • Precise details of staging and performance help students visualise the plays in action.• Stylish and spacious page layout preserves an uncluttered text and allows room for the user's annotations.For further details of the individual books available in New Cambridge Shakespeare, and to view pages from each book, please go to www.cambridge.org/ncs.

  • General Editors: Brian Gibbons, University of Münster
  • Associate Editors: A. R. Braunmuller, University of California, Los Angeles

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44 results in The New Cambridge Shakespeare

Page 1 of 3

Romeo and Juliet
  • 3rd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Introduction by Hester Lees-Jeffries
  • Edited by G. Blakemore Evans
  • Published online:
    18 August 2023
    Print publication:
    29 June 2023
  • For this updated critical edition of Romeo and Juliet, Hester Lees-Jeffries has written a completely new introduction. It draws on recent research in theatre to set Romeo and Juliet in its mid-1590s context, making connections with other plays by Shakespeare and other literature of the period, as well as with the social and cultural contexts of the day, with discussions of London and Italy, dancing and duelling, marriage, gender and sexuality. It includes detailed discussion of the play in performance from the Restoration to the present day, with a particular focus on film (including global cinema), music and dance, and also explores other adaptations and afterlives, including young-adult fiction. The edition retains the commentary and Textual Analysis of the previous editor, G. Blakemore Evans; the Textual Analysis is prefaced with a short note contextualising its conclusions in the light of more recent research.

As You Like It
  • 3rd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Michael Hattaway
  • Published online:
    14 July 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021
  • Michael Hattaway's Introduction to this bestselling edition of As You Like It accounts for what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. This third edition includes a new section on recent critical interpretations, including sections on ecocriticism, peace studies, and myths of gender, on recent as well as past stage productions and films of the play, as well as fresh illustrations. An appendix on an early court performance in 1599, commentary on the play's language, the book trade, and the discursive cultures of its time, as well as an updated reading list are also included.

The Tragedy of King Lear
  • 3rd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Introduction by Lois Potter
  • Edited by Jay Halio
  • Published online:
    21 January 2021
    Print publication:
    14 May 2020
  • For this updated critical edition of King Lear, Lois Potter has written a completely new introduction, taking account of recent productions and reinterpretations of the play, with particular emphasis on its afterlife in global performance and adaptation. The edition retains the Textual Analysis of the previous editor, Jay L. Halio, shortened and with a new preface by Brian Gibbons.  Professor Halio, accepting that we have two versions of equal authority, the one derived from Shakespeare's rough drafts, the other from a manuscript used in the playhouses during the seventeenth century, chooses the Folio as the text for this edition.  He explains the differences between the two versions and alerts the reader to the rival claims of the quarto by means of a sampling of parallel passages in the Introduction and by an appendix which contains annotated passages unique to the quarto.

All's Well that Ends Well
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Russell Fraser
  • Introduction by Alexander Leggatt
  • Published online:
    21 August 2019
    Print publication:
    25 September 2003
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For the second edition of All's Well That Ends Well, Alexander Leggatt has written a completely new introduction to Russell Fraser's text of one of Shakespeare's most puzzling, ambiguous and demanding plays. Leggatt's interest in performance is evident throughout the introduction, particularly in his discussion of the instability of the main characters. He also provides a full, illustrated and thoughtful account of the play's critical and theatrical fortunes to the end of the twentieth century, and explores our experience as an audience of seeing and hearing the play performed. An updated reading list completes the volume.

King Henry VIII
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by John Margeson
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    23 February 1990
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Edited and introduced by John Margeson, King Henry VIII appears here for the first time in a New Cambridge Shakespeare edition. In his introduction Margeson explores the political and religious background to the play, its pageant-like structure and visual effects, and its varied ironies. He also discusses its stage history, from the famous occasion in 1613 when the Globe theatre burned down during a performance of King Henry VIII to important theatrical productions of the late twentieth century. A balanced account is provided of the authorship controversy that arose in the nineteenth century, when John Fletcher's name was first put forward as a likely collaborator.

Pericles
  • Prince of Tyre
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Doreen DelVecchio, Antony Hammond
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    22 January 1998
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Over the last two decades there has been a resurgence of theatrical interest in Shakespeare's Pericles, which has been rescued from comparative neglect and is now frequently performed. The editors reject the current orthodoxies, that the text is seriously corrupt and that the play is of divided authorship. They show how the 1609 quarto has features in common with the first quarto of King Lear, now widely regarded as being based on Shakespeare's manuscript. Likewise they regard the arguments concerning divided authorship as unproven and misleading. Instead they show the play to be a unified aesthetic experience.

The First Part of King Henry VI
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Michael Hattaway
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    23 April 1990
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Shakespeare's plays about the reign of King Henry VI were written at the beginning of his career. A recent series of outstanding productions has demonstrated their theatrical vitality, and their sceptical questioning of Elizabethan orthodoxies has been understood through revisionist readings of the history of Shakespeare's own times. The First Part of King Henry VI, which gives us Shakespeare's portrait of Joan of Arc, is revealed as a successful venture in its own exploratory style, and as a necessary account of key events in the Hundred Years War without which the Wars of the Roses, anatomised in the following two plays, cannot be understood.

Coriolanus
  • 2nd edition
  • Edited by Lee Bliss
  • With contributions by Bridget Escolme
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    21 January 2010
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Coriolanus, edited by Lee Bliss, provides a thorough reconsideration of what was probably Shakespeare's last tragedy. In the introduction, Bliss situates the play within its contemporary social and political contexts and pays particular attention to Shakespeare's manipulation of his primary source in Plutarch's Lives. The edition is alert to the play's theatrical potential, while the stage history also attends to the politics of performance from the 1680s onwards, including European productions following the Second World War. A new introductory section by Bridget Escolme accounts for recent theatrical productions as well as scholarly criticism of the last decade, with particular emphasis on gender and politics.

King John
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by L. A. Beaurline
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    30 March 1990
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Edited and introduced by L. A. Beaurline, the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of King John offers the most complete account to date of the play's stage history, with accompanying illustrations to demonstrate its dramatic potential. Although King John fell out of fashion by the end of the nineteenth century, Beaurline shows how its political importance, rich and varied language, and skilful design suggest that it should occupy a prominent position among Shakespeare's historical tragedies. In the Appendix, Beaurline surveys the arguments about the dating of the play and the anonymous Troublesome Reign of King John, and presents new evidence to support the view that Shakespeare's play was written first.

The Third Part of King Henry VI
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Michael Hattaway
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    04 March 1993
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries, textual notes on the plays and poems and an extensive Introduction. Shakespeare's plays about the reign of King Henry VI were written at the beginning of his career. A recent series of outstanding productions has demonstrated their theatrical vitality, and their sceptical questioning of Elizabethan orthodoxies has been understood through revisionist readings of the history of Shakespeare's own times. In The Third Part of King Henry VI, Shakespeare extends his essay on monarchical politics by contrasting two kings, the good but ineffective Henry VI with his rival, the sensual and victorious Edward IV. He also shows the perils of aristocratic factionalism in a series of scenes that display the grievous wounds caused by the Wars of the Roses.

The Winter's Tale
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Susan Snyder, Deborah T. Curren-Aquino
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    08 March 2007
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems and an extensive introduction.The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's most varied, theatrically self-conscious, and emotionally wide-ranging plays. Much of the play's copiousness inheres in its generic intermingling of tragedy, comedy, romance, pastoral, and the history play. In addition to dates and sources, the introduction attends to iterative patterns, the nature and cause of Leontes' jealousy, the staging and meaning of the bear episode, and the thematic and structural implications of the figure of Time. Special attention is paid to the ending and its tempered happiness. Performance history is integrated throughout the introduction and commentary. Appendices include the theatrical practice of doubling.

Measure for Measure
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Brian Gibbons
  • With contributions by Angela Stock
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    06 July 2006
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of Measure for Measure Angela Stock has written a new introductory section that takes account of recent scholarly criticism and important contemporary productions on stage and film. The edition retains the text prepared by Brian Gibbons together with his comprehensive introduction, in which he shows how the play's critical reception and stage history varies from one period to the next according to the prevailing social, moral and religious issues of the day. Gibbons explores the thrilling experience of watching the play in performance, with its shocking reversals and surprises, great tragic poetry and exuberant comic prose. An updated reading list completes the edition.

The Second Part of King Henry IV
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Giorgio Melchiori
  • With contributions by Adam Hansen
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    03 May 2007
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition retains Giorgio Melchiori's text of Shakespeare's The Second Part of King Henry IV. Melchiori argues that the play forms an unplanned sequel to the First Part, itself a 'remake' of an old, non-Shakespearean play. In the Second Part, Shakespeare deliberately exploits Falstaff's popular appeal and the resulting rich humour adds a comic dimension to the play, rendering it a unique blend of history, morality play and comedy. Among modern editions, Melchiori's is the one most firmly based on the quarto. This second edition includes a new section by Adam Hansen on recent stage, film and critical interpretations.

The Merchant of Venice
  • 3rd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by M.M. Mahood
  • Introduction by Tom Lockwood
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    19 April 2018
  • For this updated edition of one of Shakespeare's most problematic plays, Tom Lockwood has added a new introductory section on the latest scholarly trends, performance and adaptation practices which have occurred over the last two decades. Investigating the latest critical frames through which the play has been interpreted, the updated introduction also focuses on recent international performances on stage and screen (including Al Pacino's performances on film and in Daniel Sullivan's production in New York, the Habima National Theatre's production for the Globe to Globe Festival, Jonathan Munby's touring production for the Globe performed in London, New York and Venice, and Rupert Goold's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company). Finally, new forms of adaptation are considered: a performance transposed to the different generic mode of a New York auction room, and the remaking of the play in Howard Jacobson's 2016 novel, Shylock Is my Name.

Macbeth
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by A. R. Braunmuller
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    27 November 2008
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Macbeth provides a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. In his introduction, A. R. Braunmuller explores Macbeth's immediate theatrical and political contexts, particularly the Gunpowder Plot, and addresses such celebrated questions as: do the Witches compel Macbeth to murder; is Lady Macbeth herself in some sense a witch; is Macduff morally culpable? A new and well-illustrated account of the play in performance examines several cinematic versions, such as those by Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, as well as other dramatic adaptations. Several possible new sources are suggested and the presence of Thomas Middleton's writing in the play is also proposed.

Antony and Cleopatra
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by David Bevington
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    04 July 2005
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of Antony and Cleopatra, David Bevington has included in his introductory section a thorough consideration of recent critical and stage interpretations, demonstrating how the theatrical design and imagination of this play make it one of Shakespeare's most remarkable tragedies. The edition is attentive throughout to the play as theatre: a detailed, illustrated account of the stage history is followed, in the commentary, by discussion of staging options offered by the text. The commentary is especially full and helpful, untangling many obscure words and phrases, illuminating sexual puns, and alerting the reader to Shakespeare's shaping of his source material in Plutarch's Lives.

King Henry V
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Andrew Gurr
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    21 July 2005
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of King Henry V, Shakespeare's most celebrated war play, Andrew Gurr has added a new section to his introduction in which he considers recent criticism and important contemporary productions of the play. Concentrating in particular on 'secret' versus 'official' readings of the work, he analyses Shakespeare's double vision of Henry as both military hero and self-seeking individual, and shows how the patriotic declarations of the Chorus are contradicted by the play's dramatic action. Controversial sequences are placed in the context of Elizabethan thought while the exceptional variety of language and dialect in the text is also studied. An updated reading list completes the edition.

Timon of Athens
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Karl Klein
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    03 April 2001
  • Karl Klein's edition of Timon of Athens introduces Shakespeare's play as a complex exploration of a corrupt, moneyed society. Klein sees the protagonist not as a failed tragic hero, but as a rich and philanthropic nobleman, surrounded by greed and sycophancy, who is forced to recognise the inherent destructiveness of the Athenian society from which he retreats in disgust and rage. Klein establishes Timon as one of Shakespeare's late works, arguing, contrary to recent academic views, that evidence for other authors besides Shakespeare is inconclusive. The edition shows that the play is neither tragedy, satire nor comedy, but a subtle and complete drama whose main characters contain elements of all three genres. This edition was near completion at the time of Karl Klein's death, and was prepared for publication by his colleagues and by Brian Gibbons.

Romeo and Juliet
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by G. Blakemore Evans
  • With contributions by Thomas Moisan
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    01 May 2003
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Romeo and Juliet retains the text prepared by G. Blakemore Evans, together with his introduction and detailed textual notes. A thorough stage history features illustrations and photographs of notable performances from the eighteenth century onwards while a lucid commentary alerts the reader to the difficulties of language, thought and staging. For this second edition, Thomas Moisan has added a new introductory section which focuses on recent scholarly criticism and contemporary productions of the play. The reading list has also been revised and updated.

As You Like It
  • 2nd edition
  • William Shakespeare
  • Edited by Michael Hattaway
  • Published online:
    16 August 2019
    Print publication:
    10 September 2009
  • The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. In his Introduction to this second edition of As You Like It, its editor, Michael Hattaway accounts for what makes this popular play both innocent and dangerous. In performance it can appear bright or sombre: a feast of language and a delight for comic actors, or a risk-taking exploration of gender roles. This edition includes a new section on recent critical interpretations and dramatic productions of the play as well as an appendix on an early court performance of As You Like It in 1599. Commentary on the play's language, an updated reading list and an account of the play in performance are also included.

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