Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series) - Softcover

"

A pathbreaking edition, one that promises to change irrevocably our understanding of Shakespeare's greatest play. "Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare"

"Hamlet"'s latest editors have undertaken a heroic task with great skill and thoroughness. "Stanley Wells, The Observer (UK)"

Quite simply the most comprehensive edition of the play currently available, a status I suspect it will enjoy for many years to come. "The British Theatre Guide"

Stunning! There is absolutely no doubt about this being the text to buy . . . for those students who will be studying the play at university. This critical edition gives the reader the Second Quarto Text (1604-1605), annotated with intelligence and care, a wealth of historical and cultural references and a survey of different critical approaches to the play. "The Use of English""

With a wealth of helpful and incisive commentary, this edition of Hamlet
provides:

* The Second Quarto Text (1604-1605), edited to the highest standards of
scholarship

* Additional passages found only in the 1623 Folio text

* Detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text

* A full, illustrated introduction to the play's historical, cultural and
performance contexts

* An in-depth survey of critical approaches to the play

* A full index to the introduction and notes

* A select bibliography of references and further reading

This is a fully self-contained free-standing volume which includes in its
Introduction and Appendices all the supporting materials that a reader
would expect to find in an Arden edition.
It forms the core of a ground-breaking edition of three Hamlet texts. A
companion volume contains the fully annotated texts of the 1603 First
Quarto and the 1623 Folio.

Readers of both editions have, for the first time, a unique opportunity to
study the three surviving texts of Hamlet experienced by Shakespeare's
contemporaries, fully modernized and edited by leading scholars.