I can't believe I read the whole thing! | The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition, Second...

Norton quality - always the best | The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition, Second Edition: One-Volume Hardcover | William Shakespeare

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	• The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition, Second Edition: One-Volume Hardcover William Shakespeare W. W. Norton, 2008 - 3419 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A college must

Most students who have taken any college course on Shakespeare have purchased this book. I purchased one for my Shakespeare class and found myself reading the plays included in the book that weren't even assigned. If you want to get a concise book of Shakespeare's work, this Norton version is the way to go.

I can't believe I read the whole thing!

Initially, I had to buy this mammoth of a book for a college course covering Shakespeare's early commedies and histories. I've been fascinated with Shakespeare ever since I read Romeo and Juliet in high school, and my college studies merely increased that fascination. This book served me very well in the course; the introductions are extremely relevant to and informative about both the background of play and also the period in which it is written. I appreciate that the introductions are well-written and easy to understand. (Shakespeare is hard enough to understand without having to wade through a difficult introduction as well.) The footnotes are also excellent; they provide much needed explanations, descriptions, and definitions. There are also side notes with the more common words for archaic words used. I certainly wouldn't want to try to read Shakespeare without all the tools provided in this edition. Since college, I have spent nearly two years working my way through Shakespeare's works, and it has been extrememly gratifying. I like some plays better than others and find some plays easier to understand than others, but I couldn't be happier with the edition required back in college.

I would also like to add that the book is much sturdier than it seems, especially the tissue thin pages. This book was toted around in a backpack with me for a semester in college and has been most abusively treated since then. I've dropped it numerous times, had it sliding around in the trunk whenever I went on vacation, and toted it with me to many a doctor's appointment. My puppy tried to chew up the corner of it when I wasn't looking, and my husband spilled coffee on the open pages and down the side while I was reading. With the exception of a little wear on the corners of the cover, a coffee stain, and a few wrinkled pages, the book is in fine condition. I would have expected ripped or severly damaged pages from some of the things my book has endured, but all the pages are whole, which is remarkable considering how thin they are.

Overall, I think this book is a wonderful edition of Shakespeare's work for both the student and also the reader who just wants to improve his or her mind. I'm not some fancy college professor, but this book has served me equally well in my endeavors as a student and as a reader.

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Norton quality - always the best

This is an excellent collection of all the works by William Shakespeare. Each work features a fabulous introduction by one of the editors focusing on the play itself and its zeitgeist. Obsolete vocabulary is not indicated as a footnote but in the margin, which makes reading far more fluently. Additional and comprehensive explanations to certain passages are given in the footnotes. Even though the pages are very thin, a marker does normally not shimmer through the pages, which makes this book excellent for literature studies. However, it is to cumbersome for everyday use at school/university. The only drawback I encountered so far was the fact that the release date was set to January 1, 2008 and I got it in mid April.

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school use

At my university this book was used in the tragic/comedy Shakespeare English classes. I found it to be very useful as a resource.

Norton Anth. Shakespeare

Sweet. I'm glad this includes timelines and background information. I'm happy to have my only Shakespeare Anthology. I think it will last me forever.

Lauded on publication in 1997 as the complete Shakespeare for a new generation of students, this Second Edition of the best-selling Norton Shakespeare introduces new scholarship and editorial features that invite readers afresh to Shakespeare's plays and poems. Stephen Greenblatt's dazzling introduction, updated for the Second Edition, creates a window into the culture of early modern England; Shakespeare's life in the theater; and the businesses of printing, publishing, and textual editing. The works themselves, based on the Oxford edition, are enhanced with lively introductions, all of which have been fine-tuned for the Second Edition, as well as ample glosses, annotations, a textual note, and new annotated bibliographies and filmographies. Andrew Gurr's essay "The Shakespearean Stage," a new timeline, new maps, a glossary of theater and printing terms, contextual documents, and redesigned genealogies provide additional help for readers.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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