Recommendations

It's too bad all the Complete Shakespeares get combined in LibraryThing catalogs, because the quality of the gloss vary. My first volume was a Pelikan and, at times, I needed a gloss for my gloss. My favorite Complete Shakespeare is what many colleges use--the Bevington. It's ever so lucid and it makes reading the bard a much more fluid experience.

I also have Arden Shakespeare Complete Works which comes without gloss or line numbering. It's a very nice experience to read Shakespeare in this format, because you get a sense of what it may have been like to read the original manuscripts. It's gorgeously bound in leather with marbled endpapers.

I also think it's important to read Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Paul Fussell to fully gain an appreciation of Shakespeare. If there is a better book on poetic meter, read it! I had long read Shakespeare for the story, but until I came to understand the beauty of metrics and their variations through Fussell's erudite, smooth and humorous exposition, the full genius of Shakespeare did not become apparant to me. Fussell also gives us a history of English poetics which is absolutely crucial to excavating the legacy of our marvelous English language.

When acquiring an individual script/work I usually get the Applause version as they are Folio based, following the belief that there are clues to how the scenes are to be performed in the way it was written. I also like the Arden editions as well. I recently got the Third Series Arden Hamlet that I'm looking forward to reading. >2 belleyang: Thanks for Paul Fussell recommendation.

I like the Riverside complete. Great notes, great introductions.

I like the Yale set for individual plays, because they're small enough to stick in a bag, so you can read Shakespeare any time you want!

The Arden individual plays are good too, lots of notes and supporting materials, but they're thick (harder to tote around!).

>4 haftime: I must admit my Bevington is a better read, but very hard on my wrists. I can pick it up with one hand but it's not an easy thing to do. And if I read late at night in my bed, propping it up on my stomach, I find it a struggle to inhale. The Bevington comes in paperback now with the plays divided into comedy, tragedy, etc.

On combination issues, I once spent no small measure of time separating and recombining editions of the complete works until I'd at least combed out all of the Riversides. This has undoubtedly gotten fouled up again, but it's a start, and the Riverside still has a separate existence (from the Complete Works) on Librarything.

There is an article in the Books section of the New York Times (web version) about 4 new books being released in conjunction with The Bard's birthday, including a new complete works commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. My wishlist just got bigger.

I will be reading these 5 plays in the following order:

Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Pericles
Titus Andronicus
Henry VIII

I hope some of you might also choose to read these so it won't be a soliloquy.

thanks for the recommendations! Now I know where to begin.

For an excellent overview of a current mode of Shakespeare enjoyment, I have just received (from Amazon), Shakespeare and the Moving Image: the plays on film and television.

i'd like to make a plug for John Barton's ACTING SHAKESPEARE series with many prominent members of the RSC including the great Richard Pasco.

For an "insider's" direct experience with Shakespeare: from Amazon--Will & Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life by Dominic Dromgoole (Paperback - May 1, 2007)
Buy new: $14.95 Used & new from $1.00.

a trip from Stratford to London. a fine effort by DD.

Looking for Richard (DVD with Al Pacino)

John Barton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnSijWlIj1I

I didnʻt have space for my Shakespeare Collection in my library, and gave the volumes of it to public libraries. (Whether they actually put much of it into the library collection is another question. In most cases ,probably not.) It wasnʻt complete, but had perhaps 2/3 of Shakespeare.

I have since acquired vol. 4 of the Bantam edition of "The Coplete Works which has 2 comedies
(or 3, if Measure for Measure is a comedy), and 3 tragedies: Caesar, 12th Night, Troilus and Cressida, Allʻs Well that Ends Well, M f M, and Othello. I want to acquire in some ed. or other" Hamlet, King Lear, the Tempest and most of the Histories.

For re-reading currently I have from the public library: Cymbeline and King Richard II

Although we have quite an extensive collection of video movie performances of many of the Shakespeare plays, we are continually on the look out for new "interpretations". One of these, which we have just recently come by, Romeo and Juliet, produced by Thames Television is out-standing and is available at Amazon: Romeo and Juliet (Thames Shakespeare Collection) (Jun 28, 2005) by Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson, Laurence Payne, et al. Buy new: $24.95 $17.99, 64 Used & new from $2.74).