First new Complete Shakespeare edition of the 21st century
The Festival year also sees the launch of a major new publishing project – a new ‘RSC edition’ of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Jonathan Bate, Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick and a member of the RSC’s Board.
The first new edition of the Complete Works this century, the project is a partnership between the RSC and publishers Macmillan and Random House.
Editor of the RSC Complete Works of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate, said: “With each new century, we see Shakespeare in new light and the process of editing him begins afresh. Understanding Shakespeare as a working dramatist whose plays were changed and adapted in the theatre has called into question some long-held assumptions about the relationship between his early printed texts. With the intimate involvement of RSC artists we will be able to produce a 21st century version of the only truly authoritative edition of Shakespeare: the First Folio that was published by his fellow-actors.
“The editorial approach will spare no blushes with Shakespeare’s humour. Compared with previous editions, our glossary takes a much less coy attitude to the sexual innuendo and wickedly playful language of the plays.”
The new RSC Complete Works is the first edition to be published based on the First Folio since 1709, and will be launched during the Festival year. Individual editions of the plays will follow from 2007.
Reviews for RSC Complete Works
"The endurance of Shakespeare depends not only on the felt experience of good, vivid theater, but also on dynamic scholarship that reveals his living text.”
—Michael Boyd, RSC artistic director
“Timely, original, and beautifully conceived, this is a remarkable edition, one that makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever."
–James Shapiro, Professor, Columbia University and bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599:
“This is a glorious edition of one of the world’s most important books. It’s the essential reference book for anyone who’s ever been in love, felt jealousy, fear, hatred, or desire. All human life is here–and every home should have one.”
–Dame Judi Dench, RSC honorary associate artist
