The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition invites readers to rediscover Shakespeare—the working man of the theater, not the universal bard-and to rediscover his plays as scripts to be performed, not works to be immortalized. Combining the freshly edited texts of the Oxford Edition with lively introductions by Stephen Greenblatt and his co-editors, glossaries and annotations, and an elegant single-column page (that of the Norton Anthologies), this edition of Shakespeare invites contemporary readers to see and read Shakespeare afresh. Greenblatt's full introduction creates a window into Shakespeare world-the culture, demographics, commerce, politics, and religion of early-modern England—Shakespeare's family background and professional life, the Elizabethan industries of theater and printing, and the subsequent centuries of Shakespeare textual editing.

    Many of Shakespeare's plays appeared in print there for the first time. This photographic facsimile offers the actor, the director, and every lover of Shakespeare an opportunity to read a First Folio version of the plays, unaltered by modern scholarly editors. Doug Moston's introduction and glossary provide modern actors and readers with an understanding of how the Folio text can work today. His original line-numbering system, printed on each page of the facsimile, allows actors to move through the text with ease.