Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies

When James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir of his famous aunt was published in 1870, far from satisfying public curiosity about Jane Austen as the family had intended, it simply raised a series of new questions, particularly about Jane Austen's unpublished work, which had been mentioned only in passing. Austen Leigh was persuaded to issue a much-expanded second edition in 1871. Here he included for the first time the complete texts of Jane Austen's novel in letters, Lady Susan, and the fragmentary novel The Watsons, as well as a brief summary of her last unfinished work, later known as Sanditon. At the same time he took the opportunity to revise the biographical sections of the Memoir partly to include new information that had come to light since the first edition, so that all in all the second edition has a significance for Austen scholars quite separate from the first.

Analysing Shakespeare's historical background and craft, Spencer's 1943 study investigates the intellectual debates of Shakespeare's age, and the effect these had on the drama of the time. The book outlines the key conflict present in the sixteenth century - the optimistic ideal of man's place in the universe, as presented by the theorists of the time, set against the indisputable and ever-present fact of original sin. This conflict about the nature of man, argues Spencer, is perhaps the deepest underlying cause for the emergence of great Renaissance drama. With detailed reference to Shakespeare's great tragedies, the book demonstrates how Shakespeare presents the fact of evil masked by the appearance of good. Shakespeare's last plays, especially The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, are also analysed in detail to show how they embody a different view from the tragedies, and the discussion is related to the larger perspective of general human experience.

Lady (Augusta) Gregory (1852-1932) was a dramatist and folklorist. Along with the poet W. B. Yeats she was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and co-founded the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Born Isabella Augusta Persse in County Galway, she belonged to the Anglo-Irish ascendancy, which was closely associated with colonial rule. She married Sir William Gregory in 1880. Her conversion to Irish cultural nationalism began after the death of her husband and was heavily influenced by her visit in 1892 to Inisheer, one of the Aran Islands, where she learnt Irish and the Hiberno-English dialect of Kiltartin. Poets and Dreamers was her first publication and contained translations of the Irish-language poet Anthony Raftery, folk-tales, and plays by the Gaelic scholar and future first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=gregau

Mary Cowden Clarke (1809-1898) was the daughter of the music publisher Vincent Novello. Charles and Mary Lamb were family friends, and under the inspiration of their Tales from Shakespeare, Mary became a noted Shakespeare scholar, her major work being the Concordance to Shakespeare, which took twelve years to compile, and was to remain a standard work for half a century. From 1856 Clarke and her husband Charles lived in Italy, continuing to publish essays and books, including their joint Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare. This autobiography, published in 1896, contains many anecdotes and memories of the literary and musical circles in which Mary moved throughout her life: the Lambs, John Keats, the Shelleys, Dickens, Leigh Hunt and Mendelssohn all appear. The book is written in a vivid and engaging style, and records a fascinating nineteenth century life. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=clarmc

James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-1889) was an enthusiastic collector of books on Shakespeare (including nearly all the pre-1660 editions) and a respected and prolific scholar of Elizabethan literature. His extensive collection is now housed at Edinburgh University Library. This volume contains a selection of his early writings and includes: 'A catalogue of the early editions of Shakespeare's plays and of the commentaries and other publications illustrative of his works' (1841); 'An account of the only known manuscript of Shakespeare's plays, comprising some important variations and corrections in the Merry Wives of Windsor' (1843); 'An introduction to Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream' (1841); 'On the character of Sir John Falstaff, as originally exhibited by Shakespeare in the two parts of King Henry IV' (1841); 'Curiosities of Modern Shakespearian Criticism' (1853); 'Observations on some of the manuscript emendations of the text of Shakespeare and are they copyright?' (1853).

The anonymous 'Old Soldier' who compiled this anthology of passages from Shakespeare, published in 1877, states in the preface that he was inspired to make his selection by a passage in The Gentle Life: Essays in Aid of the Formation of Character, by the now largely forgotten Victorian essayist James Hain Friswell: 'If a man wanted to make a sugar-sweet book ... let him go through the plays of the great national Poet, and make an extract of those passages wherein he has exalted woman.' In thirty-three sections (four plays are omitted), extensive quotations present examples of 'exalted woman' and give an insight into the taste of the educated middle class in the mid-Victorian period.

First published in 1962, Matthews' study examines the symbolic elements which persistently recur in Shakespeare's plays. The book focuses on the traditional material from medieval and sixteenth-century drama which seems to have been present in Shakespeare's mind as he worked, and which, Matthews argues, inspired significant themes which resonate throughout the plays. Divided into three parts, the book addresses in turn the concept of sin, the opposition of justice and mercy and the hope of redemption. Matthews investigates these motifs and their currency in Elizabethan England, and traces their presence in Shakespeare's created worlds with detailed reference to a wide range of the plays. Awareness of them provides fruitful avenues for the interpretation of the plays, and sheds light on Shakespeare's motives and methods.

Lily Bess Campbell (1883-1967) was a professor of English at UCLA. She won the achievement award from the American Association of University Women in 1960 and was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1962. One of the most eminent literary scholars of her generation in the United States, she published mostly on Tudor literature. This study, first published in 1930, examines how the passions were understood in the Renaissance and why they were a central concern in the philosophy and medical studies of the period. After several chapters exploring moral philosophy and tragedy more generally, Campbell analyses the characters of Hamlet, Othello, Lear and Macbeth in relation to their guiding emotions: grief, jealousy, wrath and fear. She argues that Shakespeare, in his major tragedies, reflected the latest thinking of his time about the passions and their role in shaping the human mind.

C. J. Sisson (1885-1966) was Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature in the University of London. His main research interest was Shakespeare, but in this study, first published in 1936, he explores what legal records can tell us about lost early modern plays and entertainments. The Court of Star Chamber prosecuted a number of offences against moral order and frequently took action against the dramatic representation of sedition and libel. Its records often provide the only evidence of Tudor plays and entertainments never printed and lost in manuscript. Sisson explores several cases in detail, identifying the people who filed complaints against libel as well as exploring all possible evidence about what the plays contained. Sisson's study remains of value as the first to uncover archival information about lost works of Chapman, Dekker, Ford and Webster as well as anonymous jigs, verse satires and libels.

This 1914 scholarly edition of the mid-sixteenth-century play Jacke Jugeler contains an informative introduction and detailed notes. Little-known today, the play represents a pre-Shakespearean example of classical 'borrowing' - a Roman play by Plautus is adapted to an English domestic situation - and it is one of the first instances of confused identity and 'doubles' in English comedy. The text of this edition is taken from the unique original, probably published around 1562, in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. In his Introduction, W. H. Williams proposes the likely identity of the play's author, and provides an analysis of the play's language to support his claim. He examines the connections in method, characters and language between Jacke Jugeler and Ralph Roister Doister, a play written and performed around the same time.

This edition of Worke for Cutlers was edited by Albert Forbes Sieveking and published in 1904, shortly after it had been staged (probably for the first time in 300 years) at Trinity Hall. The play was originally published anonymously in 1615, and was then described as 'Acted in a Shew in the famous Universitie of Cambridge'. Sieveking gives reasons to believe that Thomas Heywood, whose most famous work is A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603), had at least a part in its writing, and points out the topicality of 'A Merry Dialogue betweene Sword, Rapier and Dagger' at a time when James I was issuing edicts against duelling, which was punishable by heavy fines or even death. The short play is provided with a 'glossarial epilogue' containing explanatory notes.

Camilla Crosland (1812-1895) was a British author whose literary career spanned sixty years of the nineteenth century. Although best known as a poet, she was also a prolific writer of short stories, novels and articles. In the late 1850s she became involved with spiritualism, and published influential works on the subject. This volume, first published in 1893, contains her detailed autobiography. Crosland describes her long life chronologically, describing the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the death of George III and the characters and lives of the many influential authors she met during her career. She also provides anecdotes and detailed descriptions of early Victorian society and the development of literature to appeal to a broader readership. This volume provides a fascinating retrospect of early Victorian social life. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=crosca

In the mid-nineteenth century, as Jane Austen's fame grew, her family was under increasing pressure to provide details about her life and work. Her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, who had known her personally, collected a series of reminiscences, letters and family documents and put them together in this very first full-length biography of Jane Austen, published in 1870. Concentrating on his aunt Jane's life in rural southern England, he made public for the first time the domestic and social context which nurtured her and within which she wrote her famous novels. He also gave previously unknown details about her efforts to publish her work, including some of her correspondence. At the same time he created a partial portrait of a modest, unassuming and devout woman, living 'in entire seclusion from the literary world', which has influenced Austen scholarship ever since.

Seneca's plays, which include Hercules Furens, Phaedra, Medea and Oedipus, were widely read during the Elizabethan era, and had an important influence on the dramatists of the time, including Shakespeare, Kyd, Marlowe and Marston. This study, first published in 1922, examines Seneca's Greek predecessors, his character, life and times, and the nature and extent of his influence and legacy. Divided into five sections, the book addresses in turn: the rise of Greek drama before Seneca; Seneca's character and temperament; Seneca's tragedies; the different dramatic forms in the centuries after Seneca; and the important influence of Seneca on Elizabethan dramatists. Lucas provides close readings of a wide range of plays, including Macbeth and The Spanish Tragedy, and places the works in their historical context - Greek, Roman and Elizabethan.

George H. Cowling (1881-1946), Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds and subsequently Professor of English at Melbourne, wrote this study as his dissertation, inspired by his own love of music. He shows what kinds of music were used on the Elizabethan stage, and explains where in the theatre, at which point during the plays and with which instruments and personnel the music was performed. He also assesses what both songs and incidental music contributed to the meaning and the performance of Shakespeare, going back to examine the roots of dramatic music in the use of religious music in the medieval Mystery plays. He offers a lively and approachable introduction to the subject that provides a way into the field of early modern music in the theatre, and a foundation for more detailed critical work.

In this charming and thought-provoking 1926 volume, Arthur Gray, Master of Jesus College, Cambridge from 1912 to 1940, explored the possibility that William Shakespeare spent his formative years at Polesworth Hall in the Forest of Arden, perhaps serving as a page boy. The Forest of Arden once stretched from just north of Stratford-upon-Avon to Tamworth, and covered what is now Birmingham; Polesworth, near Tamworth, was the home of Sir Henry Goodere and the centre of the famed 'Polesworth Circle'. This splendid focus of creative and cultural activity would have offered the young William exposure to the finest minds, a wonderful education and valuable introductions. Sir Henry, who evidently knew John Shakespeare in Stratford, was certainly patron of many young writers and musicians, including the eminent Elizabethan poet, Michael Drayton. If Gray is correct, Drayton would have been a contemporary of Shakespeare's at Polesworth.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of Antony and Cleopatra, David Bevington has included in his introductory section a thorough consideration of recent critical and stage interpretations, demonstrating how the theatrical design and imagination of this play make it one of Shakespeare's most remarkable tragedies. The edition is attentive throughout to the play as theatre: a detailed, illustrated account of the stage history is followed, in the commentary, by discussion of staging options offered by the text. The commentary is especially full and helpful, untangling many obscure words and phrases, illuminating sexual puns, and alerting the reader to Shakespeare's shaping of his source material in Plutarch's Lives.

As You Like It has sometimes seemed a subversive play that exposes the instability of gender roles and traditional values. In other eras it has been prized - or derided - as a reliable celebration of conventional social mores. The play's ability to encompass these extremes tells an interesting story about changing cultural and theatrical practices. This edition provides a detailed history of the play in production, both on stage and on screen. The introduction examines how changing conceptions of gender roles have affected the portrayal of Rosalind, one of Shakespeare's greatest comic heroines. The striking differences between the British tradition and the freer treatment the play has received abroad are discussed, as well as the politics of court versus country. The commentary, printed alongside the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of the text, draws on primary sources to illuminate how costuming, stage business, design, and directorial choices have shaped the play in performance.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Edited and introduced by Martin Butler, this first New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of Cymbeline takes full account of the critical and historical scholarship produced in the late twentieth century. It foregrounds the romance, tragicomedy and Jacobean stagecraft that shape the play and offers a refreshingly unsentimental reading of the heroine, Innogen. Butler pays greater attention than his predecessors to the politics of 1610, especially to questions of British union and nationhood. He also offers a lively account of Cymbeline's stage history from 1610 to the present day. The text has been edited from the 1623 Folio and features a detailed commentary on its linguistic and historical features.

The third edition of Hamlet offers a completely new introduction to this rich, mysterious play. Supplemented by an updated reading list, extensive illustrations and helpful appendices, this edition features revised commentary notes explicitly designed for the student reader, offering the very best in contemporary criticism of this great tragedy.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For this second edition of King Henry V, Shakespeare's most celebrated war play, Andrew Gurr has added a new section to his introduction in which he considers recent criticism and important contemporary productions of the play. Concentrating in particular on 'secret' versus 'official' readings of the work, he analyses Shakespeare's double vision of Henry as both military hero and self-seeking individual, and shows how the patriotic declarations of the Chorus are contradicted by the play's dramatic action. Controversial sequences are placed in the context of Elizabethan thought while the exceptional variety of language and dialect in the text is also studied. An updated reading list completes the edition.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary.

John Dover Wilson's New Shakespeare, published between 1921 and 1966, became the classic Cambridge edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems until the 1980s. The series, long since out-of-print, is now reissued. Each work is available both individually and as a set, and each contains a lengthy and lively introduction, main text, and substantial notes and glossary printed at the back. The edition, which began with The Tempest and ended with The Sonnets, put into practice the techniques and theories that had evolved under the 'New Bibliography'. Remarkably by today's standards, although it took the best part of half a century to produce, the New Shakespeare involved only a small band of editors besides Dover Wilson himself. As the volumes took shape, many of Dover Wilson's textual methods acquired general acceptance and became an established part of later editorial practice, for example in the Arden and New Cambridge Shakespeares.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This third edition of Julius Caesar retains the text prepared by Marvin Spevak for the 1988 first edition and features a completely new introduction by Jeremy Lopez. Discussing in detail the play's strange and innovative form, Lopez explores the interpretive challenges Julius Caesar has presented to audiences, scholars and theatre companies from Shakespeare's time to our own. The textual commentary has been revised and updated with an eye, and ear, to the contemporary student reader, and the list of further readings has been updated to reflect the latest developments in scholarly criticism. The edition concludes with an Appendix containing relevant excerpts from Shakespeare's main source in Plutarch.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. Edited and introduced by L. A. Beaurline, the New Cambridge Shakespeare edition of King John offers the most complete account to date of the play's stage history, with accompanying illustrations to demonstrate its dramatic potential. Although King John fell out of fashion by the end of the nineteenth century, Beaurline shows how its political importance, rich and varied language, and skilful design suggest that it should occupy a prominent position among Shakespeare's historical tragedies. In the Appendix, Beaurline surveys the arguments about the dating of the play and the anonymous Troublesome Reign of King John, and presents new evidence to support the view that Shakespeare's play was written first.