The Works
In 1984, Professor Sir Stanley Wells - along with his fellow editors - was about to break from the multiple volume tradition by editing Shakespeare's Complete Works in one volume for Oxford University Press. In that year, he also published a book based on lectures given at the Folger Shakespeare Library in which he concerns himself with the practical aspects of putting together an edition of Shakespeare's texts. In the introduction, he addresses the need to produce new editions when so many are already in the market and argues that,
'To prepare a new edition of Shakespeare is not a waste of time. It is true that many editions of Shakespeare are available to the modern reader. But it is also true that many people continue to think hard about Shakespeare and, more generally, about the various aspects of the times in which he lived [...] these works have implications for the study of Shakespeare's text, and it is proper that notice should be taken of them in editions of the plays' (Wells, 1984, pp. 2-3)
The editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems in a single volume that are presented in this section of the exhibition were chosen because they have been seminal to our understanding of these texts. Each of these editions has been prepared by the most authoritative Shakespearean scholars of our time and each of them brings to their readers unique perspectives, not only in terms of the textual decisions made by their editors, but also in the scope and depth of the information and analysis provided in the introductions and other ancillary material.