This volume gives readers the First Quarto text of 1603 and the Folio Text of 1623, modernised and edited to the usual Arden standard. As a companion to the Second Quarto volume, it will be of particular interest to scholars and students of textual history, or to anyone studying Hamlet at an advanced level. Both plays are edited and annotated and the introduction contains the fullest available stage history of the First Quarto text.
Hamlet...has been given a rebirth of sorts by editors Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor...puts the final pieces of the "puzzle of Hamlet" into place by publishing...updated versions of both the First Quarto and First Folio editions of the play. This wonderful ternion gives the serious students of Hamlet everything they need to delve deeply into the Dane. The textual annotations are extensive and worth the price of the book alone. None of the material is duplicated from the Hamlet: Arden Third Series, so this is all new commentary from two of the brightest minds in the world of Shakespeare... Delivers the quality you've come to expect from Arden. PlayShakespeare.com