Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Lively, instructive access to Shakespeare’s rich and complex works. Philip Edwards aims to bring the reader, playgoer and director of Hamlet into the closest possible contact with Shakespeare’s most famous and most perplexing play. In his Introduction Edwards considers the possibility that Shakespeare made important alterations to Hamlet as it neared production, creating differences between the two early texts, quarto and folio. Edwards concentrates on essentials, dealing succinctly with the huge volume of commentary and controversy which the play has provoked and offering a way forward which enables us once again to recognise its full tragic energy. For this updated edition, Robert Hapgood has added a new section on prevailing critical and performance approaches to the play. He discusses recent film and stage performances, actors of the Hamlet role as well as directors of the play; his account of new scholarship stresses the role of remembering and forgetting in the play, and the impact of feminist and performance studies.

• Updated edition of the best-selling text, first published in 1985 • Substantial additional section to the Introduction by Robert Hapgood, editor of our Shakespeare in Production edition of the play • Two new production photographs and a revised reading list

Introduction, with new section on recent stage and critical interpretations by Robert Hapgood; Note on the text; List of characters; The play; Reading list.

‘The introduction and commentary reveal an author with a lively awareness of the importance of perceiving the play as a theatrical document, one which comes to life, which is completed only in performance.’ The Review of English Studies