The Comedy of Errors (Arden Shakespeare, Second Series) » (2nd Edition)

R. A. Foakes is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also taught or held fellowships at Yale, Birmingham, Durham, Kent, Toronto, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Australian National University, Canberra. His publications include Shakespeare, The Dark Comedies to the Last Plays and Illustrations of the English Stage 1580-1642, as well as editions of King Lear and Henry VIII for the Arden Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida and Much Ado About Nothing for the New Penguin Shakespeare, and A Midsummer Night's Dream for the New Cambridge Shakespeare.

The editor's introduction approaches the play from the technical and the critical perspectives. The technical introduction covers first printings, historical context and sources that influenced the writing, and the logistics and structure behind the play’s original staging. The critical introduction looks at the characters, the tone, and the recurrent themes throughout the text. Foakes identifies the notes of compassion and the sense of disorder that are woven among the play's comic tones, and pays special attention to the different ways the humor in The Comedy of Errors has been portrayed since Shakespeare's time. The play itself is followed by two appendices: summaries of three major textual sources and an extract from an account of The Gray's Inn Performance of The Comedy of Errors, which took place in 1594.

The Arden Shakespeare has developed a reputation as the pre-eminent critical edition of Shakespeare for its exceptional scholarship, reflected in the thoroughness of each volume. An introduction comprehensively contextualizes the play, chronicling the history and culture that surrounded and influenced Shakespeare at the time of its writing and performance, and closely surveying critical approaches to the work. Detailed appendices address problems like dating and casting, and analyze the differing Quarto and Folio sources. A full commentary by one or more of the play’s foremost contemporary scholars illuminates the text, glossing unfamiliar terms and drawing from an abundance of research and expertise to explain allusions and significant background information. Highly informative and accessible, Arden offers the fullest experience of Shakespeare available to a reader.