Shakespeare and Textual Studies

A cutting-edge and comprehensive reassessment of the theories, practices and archival evidence that shape editorial approaches to Shakespeare's texts.

Margaret Jane Kidnie (Edited by), Sonia Massai (Edited by)

9781009045490, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 June 2021

448 pages, 34 b/w illus.
23 x 15.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.71 kg

'This collection is most insightful - essential reading for editors and textual scholars. Kidnie and Massai assemble the very best Shakespeareans to examine crucial debates about the origins, production and subsequent uses of Shakespeare's texts.' Eugene Giddens, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Shakespeare and Textual Studies gathers contributions from the leading specialists in the fields of manuscript and textual studies, book history, editing, and digital humanities to provide a comprehensive reassessment of how manuscript, print and digital practices have shaped the body of works that we now call 'Shakespeare'. This cutting-edge collection identifies the legacies of previous theories and places special emphasis on the most recent developments in the editing of Shakespeare since the 'turn to materialism' in the late twentieth century. Providing a wide-ranging overview of current approaches and debates, the book explores Shakespeare's poems and plays in light of new evidence, engaging scholars, editors, and book historians in conversations about the recovery of early composition and publication, and the ongoing appropriation and transmission of Shakespeare's works through new technologies.

Introduction Margaret Jane Kidnie and Sonia Massai
Part I. Scripts and Manuscripts: 1. Playwriting in Shakespeare's time: authorship, collaboration, and attribution Heather Hirschfeld
2. Ralph Crane and Edward Knight Paul Werstine
3. Shakespeare's strayng manuscripts James Purkis
Part II. Making Books
Building Reputations: 4. The mixed fortunes of Shakespeare in print Sonia Massai
5. 'To London all'? Mapping Shakespeare in print, 1593–8 Helen Smith
6. Shakespeare as leading playwright in print, 1598–1608/9 Alan B. Farmer
7. Shakespeare between pamphlet and book Zachary Lesser and Peter Stallybrass
8. The canonization of Shakespeare in print: 1623 Emma Smith
Part III. From Print to Manuscript: 9. Commonplacing readers Laura Estill
10. Annotating and transcribing for the theatre – Shakespeare's early modern reader revisers at work Jean-Christophe Mayer
11. Shakespeare and the collection: reading beyond readers' marks Jeffrey Todd Knight
12. Encoding as editing as reading Alan Galey
13. Going postal
or, performing postprint Shakespeare W. B. Worthen
Part IV. Editorial Legacies: 14. Theatre editions Peter Holland
15. Editing Shakespeare by pictures Keir Elam
16. Format and readerships Andrew Murphy
17. A man who needs no introduction Leah S. Marcus
18. Emendation and the editorial reconfiguration of Shakespeare Lukas Erne
Part V. Editorial Practices: 19. Full pricks and great p's: spellings, punctuation, accidentals John Jowett
20. Divided Shakespeare Alan C. Dessen
21. Shakespeare's strange tongues Matthew Dimmock
22. Before the beginning
after the end: when did plays start and stop? Tiffany Stern
Part VI. Apparatus and the Fashioning of Knowledge: 23. Framing Shakespeare: introductions and commentary in critical editions of the plays Jill L. Levenson
24. Editorial memory Eric Rasmussen
25. Shakespeare as network David Weinberger.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Literary theory [DSA]