Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623 (Arden Shakespeare, Third Series) » (2nd Edition)

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

• The First Quarto Text (1603) and the First Folio Text (1623), edited to the highest standards of scholarship.
• Detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text.
• A full, illustrated introduction.
• The fullest available stage history of the First Quarto Text.
• A full index to the introduction and notes.
• A select bibliography of references and further reading.

Hamlet, The Texts of 1603 and 1623 is a companion to the core volume in a ground-breaking edition of three Hamlet texts: Hamlet, The Second Quarto Text (1604-1605). 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.

List of illustrations     ix
General editors' preface     xi
Introduction     1
The relationship of this volume to the Arden: Hamlet     1
Policy on commentary notes, textual notes and references     2
Retention of F readings     4
Retention of Q1 readings     5
Policy on Q1 metre and lineation     5
Policy on punctuation     7
Summary of our position on the three texts     8
Stage history of the First Quarto     12
Checklist of Q1 productions     38
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: The First Quarto (1603)     41
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: The First Folio (1623)     173
Abbreviations and references     361
Index     364