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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.33
EAN num: 9780517092941
ISBN number: 0517092948
Label: Gramercy
Manufacturer: Gramercy
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 1248
Printing Date: May 26, 1993
Publishing house: Gramercy
Release Date: May 26, 1993
Sale Popularity Level: 73638
Studio: Gramercy
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Definitive, comprehensive, and handsome edition presents every one of Shakespeare's great plays-the Comedies, Tragedies and Histories-plus his poems and, of course, the Sonnets. All in one beautifully illustrated volume. B&W illustrations throughout. 1248 pages.
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Rated by buyers 
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This is based on the 40 volume set of paperbacks published by Penguin Group from 1999 to 2002.
All of these are available in the one-volume Complete Pelican Shakespeare, but it is missing "The Two Noble Kinsmen", partially authored by Shakespeare (maybe because it appeared in no folio?). This is available in the Riverside, which is a very good, scholarly edition that contains a few extra items that are disputed, but the Riverside has its own set of problems.
The Pelican version is easier to read than the Riverside, is also based on good scholarship, has better print quality (at least with the volumes I possess), has full character names throughout the play rather than three letter abbreviations, and has a numbering system that lets you know when there is a note on the text to explain difficult or out of date words or phrasing. It also updates the spelling of a few of the words, like "murther" to "murder" and "owe" to "own" where appropriate, but does not overdo it. All of this makes it worth getting the Pelican, even if you have the Riverside. I would suggest getting both if you are an enthusiast and have the money to shell out, as both are excellent editions in their own right.
For the money, if you have to pick, this one is the most friendly, unless you absolutely have to have "The Two Noble Kinsmen" or other partial and disputed works included.
If you prefer to read out of individual editions of the plays, the World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library) contains most of what is in this single volume, missing the Narrative Poems and one of the King Lear volumes published in 2000 (which contained both the 1608 original long quarto version and the 1623 scaled down First Folio version of King Lear), using only the conflated version. See my review there for details.
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The 1598 loss of their theater's lease should have been a major blow to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, one of Elizabethan England's premier acting troupes, who had gained even more popularity by teaming up with one Will Shakespeare, a Warwickshire glover's son come to London some six years earlier in pursuit of his Muse, leaving behind a wife and three children; daughter Susanna, born but seven months into his marriage, and twins Hamnet and Judith, who'd followed two years later. Yet, what to another company might have spelled "present death" only brought greater fame and fortune to the one boasting, in addition to Master Shakespeare's talents, those of Richard Burbage: not only a superb tragedian but also his troupe's financier and, together with brother Cuthbert, happily able to afford the construction of a new theater in Bankside, on the opposite side of the River Thames. Prophetically, the company named their new home "The Globe" and endowed it with a motto which, in approximate translation, audiences of one of the very first plays produced there - "As You Like It" - would soon also hear pronounced from the stage, and which sums up the essence of the Bard's plays better than anything else: "Totus mundus agit histrionem" - "All the world's a stage."
The new playhouse's name and motto were apposite not only because the era did indeed consider a stage a model of the world (the area above was referred to as heaven, the area below as hell, and characters would often appear accordingly: as such, Hamlet's father is heard crying "below [stage]" after his encounter with the Prince), but very first and foremost because Shakespeare's plays themselves, individually as well as collectively, represent a microcosm of human relationships and behavior virtually unparalleled to this day: Laced with murderous schemes, revenge, and the search for justice, love, and peace of mind, but also comedy, all-too-human fallibility and great nobility of spirit, they delve into the human mind's darkest recesses and soar to its greatest heights; exploring greed, envy, ambition, guilt, remorse and pure evil, subsequent to compassion, generosity, humility, innocence, fidelity, cleverness, boundless cheers and optimism; all interwoven in timeless plots unmatched in wit, variety, construction, and richness of characters.
Yet, for all this, the biggest difficulty remaining to modern editors and readers alike is that while Shakespeare himself didn't seek the publication of his plays, in the absence of anything approximating modern copyright laws, he was unable to prevent their publication by others, in so-called "quarto" editions, often based on unreliable transcripts made during or after a performance. Only after his death, in 1623, his former fellow-actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell published 37 of his plays "cured and perfect of their limbs" - i.e., restored to their author's true intentions - in a volume since referred to as the "First Folio."
Alas, authoritative weight though it has, even the latter doesn't conclusively answer what the Bard intended as the final version of these 37 plays. For one thing, research shows that even some of the Folio texts were edited by others; most prominently so "Macbeth," where Thomas Middleton inserted, inter alia, the witch queen Hecate as an additional character. Secondly, quarto editions of several plays published prior to the "First Folio" (especially of "Henry IV Part 2," "Hamlet," "Troilus and Cressida," "Othello," and "King Lear") are widely believed to represent earlier (or rival) drafts written by Shakespeare himself, and thus accorded considerable authoritative weight of their own. Often, these plays are therefore presented (both in print and on stage) by "conflating" both versions' texts. In the interest of purity, the editors of this particular volume have eschewed that approach, choosing instead to reproduce the Folio text throughout (with gently modernized spelling), because this was probably the text originally used on stage, and appending the passages most frequently added from the rivaling quartos at the end of the respective plays. Thus, this edition's reader will find Hamlet musing in "To be, or not to be" about "enterprises of great pith and moment" whose currents "turn awry and lose the name of action" (not "of great pitch and moment," as in the 1604 "Second Quarto"); he will, however, have to consult the appendix to find the Prince's reflections on that "stamp of one defect" so prominently featuring in Sir Laurence Olivier's movie, or his vows of "bloody thoughts" after encountering Fortinbras. Only in the case of "Lear," the editors chose to fully include both rivaling versions - that of the First Folio and that of the 1608 quarto - because here, the omission of entire scenes and reassignment of numerous pieces of dialogue essentially transforms the Folio text into a new play vis-a-vis the 1608 quarto.
As painstakingly researched and an as obvious ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Why do we buy "complete" editions of Shakespeare, when individual plays are available in many excellent editions, reasonably priced, eminently portable, and offering far richer commentary than will ever be available in a single volume?
The one reason I can provide is that a "complete" Shakespeare is--or ought to be--just that: complete, including everything the author is generally understood to have written.
This edition of the Pelican Shakespeare has many virtures: it is handsome, high-quality, and features thoughtful and thorough introductions to the plays, along with good annotations.
But it falls flat on the claim it makes in its very title: it is not complete. "The Two Noble Kinsmen" is nowhere to be found, although the introductions to several different plays mention it and acknowledge it as Shakespeare's. Many scholars believe that at least one scene of another play, "Sir Thomas More," is likely to be by Shakespeare, and yet another play, "Edward III," has a great deal of support for partial Shakespeare attribution as well. These items are routinely included in modern editions of Shakespeare. They are absent here, and the editors give us no explanation at all for the omissions. This is a substantial oversight, and makes it difficult to recommend this edition.
To anyone looking to read a little Shakespeare, I would encourage you to pick up a Folger and a Signet single-play edition, and see which suits your taste better. If you are set on a one-volume Shakespeare, I have to suggest you get one that is actually "complete"--Riverside, perhaps, or the new RSC.
Rated by buyers -
This is a must have for any student of literature or lover of Shakespeare. However, this is not meant to be light reading. If you are a student, particularly undergrad, you will be better served by cliffs notes or spark notes.
Rated by buyers -
I have several complete Shakespeare editions, and the Pelican stands out as the most readable I own. The book is, of course, large and thick, but the paper is not see-through, and the type is large enough for those of us with aging eyes. The text is in two columns with footnotes at the bottom of each column, making it easy to skip from words to notes and back again.
Best of all, as an owner of the Arkangel Shakespeare on CD, the Pelican is the text they use for these recordings, so following the text in print when listening to those excellent audio versions is perfect with this edition. While there is not a lot of critical apparatus - any Shakesperean worth his or her salt already has several books analyzing the plays - this volume offers a great readability for its cost. A must-have.
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