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New Kittredge Shakespeare Series

Series editor: James H. Lake

George Lyman Kittredge’s insightful editions of Shakespeare have endured in part because of his eclecticism, his diversity of interests, and his wide-ranging accomplishments — all of which are reflected in the valuable notes in each volume. The plays in the New Kittredge Shakespeare series retain the original Kittredge notes and introductions, changed or augmented only when modernization is necessary. These new editions also include introductory essays by contemporary editors, notes on the plays as they have been performed on stage and film, and additional student materials.

|  Books in Series  |  Description  |  About the Author  |  Contents  |  Reviews

 Books in Series                                      

The Life of King Henry V

Editor: Annalisa Castaldo
2007 • 978-1-58510-161-0 • paper • 144 pages • 5½ x 8½ • $8.95             

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Editor: Annalisa Castaldo

2008 • 978-1-58510-162-1 • paper • 136 pages •; 5½ x 8½ • $8.95             

The Tragedy of Antony & Cleopatra

2008 • 978-1-58510-272-3 • paper • 182 pages • 5½ x 8½ • $8.95                

The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet

 Description of Series                              

Features of the text 

    The original introduction to the Kittredge Edition

    NEW Introduction to the Focus Edition

• With a section on performance considerations and performance histories.

    NEW Performance notes

• That appear separately and immediately below the textual footnotes.  These will include some discussion of performance concerns (places where directors or actors need to make choices), staging, issues of interpretation, etc.

    NEW How To read the play as Performance Section

• A discussion of the written play vs. the play as performed (considerations, differences, accomplishments, etc.); film and/or stage; historic and modern that will allow the reader to envision the work “off the page.”

    NEW Comprehensive Timeline

• Covering major historical events (with brief annotations ) as well as relevant details from Shakespeare’s life.

    NEW Topics for Discussion and Further Study Section

• Critical Issues: dealing with the text in a larger context.

• Performance Issues: Questions related to the Introduction to the Focus Edition’s performance histories.

    NEW Production stills, commentary, pages from the script, etc.

Each play will include some or all of the following:

• Photos from major productions, for comparison and scene study.

• Annotated (facsimile) pages from a script or promptbook.

• Interviews with director or cast members.

    NEW Select Bibliography & Filmography

 Authors                                                   

• Annalisa Castaldo is assistant professor of English at Widener University. She received her Ph.D. in English Literature from Temple University. Her scholarly interests are Shakespeare and popular culture, and performance studies.

• Samuel Crowl is Trustee Professor of English at Ohio University. He is the author of four books on Shakespeare in Performance and has been honored five times for distinguished teaching.

• John R. Ford has taught courses in Shakespeare, Milton, and other Renaissance topics at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi since 1983. Ford is the author of Twelfth Night: A Guide to the Play (2005), published by Greenwood Press.

• Sarah Hatchuel lectures in English at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and teaches "Shakespeare on Screen" at the University of Paris VII. She co-organized two conferences on the screen adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays at the University of Rouen; has published several articles on the aesthetics of Shakespeare on screen; and is the author of A Companion to the Shakespearean Films of Kenneth Branagh (2000) and Shakespeare, from Stage to Screen (Cambridge, 2004).

• Jeffrey Kahan is a Professor at the University of La Verne in California. He completed his PhD at the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham, England. He has published extensively on Shakespearean forgeries and parodies, has published numerous articles, notes, and reviews, and has edited many editions of Shakespeare, including the Shakespeare for Children series.

• Bernice W. Kliman is professor emeritus of English at Nassau Community College, State University of New York. She has authored and edited numerous works on Shakespeare and especially Hamlet.

• James H. Lake is Professor of English at Louisiana State University-Shreveport. Lake received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Tulane University and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. He has published widely on Shakespeare and cinema. He is the Series Editor of the Focus New Kittredge Shakespeare Series.

• Patricia Lennox teaches at the Gallatin Center for Individualized Study at New York University. Her teaching and research interests include myths, fables, and fairy tales; Shakespeare; early modern female writers; fashion; classic literature; film history; and theater. Her published writing includes theater reviews and articles, often about Shakespeare and performance, in academic journals, and anthologies.

• Laury Magnus is Professor of Humanities at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, and has authored numerous books and articles on British and American poetry, Russian literature, and Shakespeare.

• Kenneth S. Rothwell is professor emeritus of English at The University of Vermont, where he chaired the department and received two awards for excellence in teaching. He co-founded and co-edited (with Bernice W. Kliman) the Shakespeare on Film Newsletter.

• James Wells earned his Ph.D. from Ohio University. He teaches courses in Shakespeare, Early Modern English Literature, British Literature, Drama, and Composition. He has published articles on Coriolanus and Macbeth.

 General Table of Contents                     

 Reviews                                                    

With its careful glosses and lively supporting essays on film and performance, this Taming of the Shrew provides the puzzled and the offended with a useful and intelligent guide to the possibilities of this play in a way that is historically informed yet alert to the pleasures of theater. The book does an especially fine job in its treatment of the Taylor and Zeffirelli film versions.

~ Pamela Allen Brown, University of Connecticut, Stamford

Laury Magnus’ edition of The Taming of the Shrew is much more than a revision of Kittredge. Her splendid introduction and appendices are sensitive to the play’s language and its paradoxical nuances of gender, and she understands that the play is, after all, a love story. Her explanatory notes are excellent, but most impressive and original is her emphasis on film, theater, and television performance.

~ Maurice Charney, Emeritus, Rutgers University

Seventy years after their publication, George Lyman Kittredge’s editions of Shakespeare remain exceptional for the combination of learning, acuity, wit, and clarity. Now, in the twenty-first century, Patricia Lennox broadens that understanding in her excellent edition of As You Like It where she draws on her knowledge of international film and television. She offers new meaning for modern readers who, while they savor Shakespeare’s language also understand visual signals from contemporary media.

~ Irene G. Dash, Hunter College, CUNY, retired

This edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is wonderfully lucid and thoughtful, offering supporting material that will appeal to readers from high school students to scholars. The introduction is especially thoughtful, offering, in addition to expected discussions of love, magic and imagination, an exploration of the theatrical history. The bibliography and filmography are both detailed and helpful, and the questions guide students to consider the play from many viewpoints without ever forcing an interpretation onto them.

~ Annalisa Castaldo, Widener University

Kahan has presented the performance and printing issues [of Pericles, the Prince of Tyre] with directness and clarity, leaving many technical details that might discourage some students to the footnotes. The result is a very readable “Introduction” to one of Shakespeare’s late romances.

~ Stanley Stewart, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Riverside

Shakespeare scholars Bernice W. Kliman and James H. Lake have carried out the important task of bringing up to date, while retaining the significant features of the text of Hamlet edited in the last century by the celebrated Shakespearean George Lyman Kittredge. They have succeeded in preserving for today's students the essence of Kittredge's legendary system of notes and scholarly apparatus while adding their own insightful performance notes. As Professor Kittredge himself understood, the nuances and complexities of Hamlet perennially invite new interpretation and speculation. Kliman and Lake have retained that spirit by stressing in their own fresh introductory essay how recent productions have in their diversity brought about a "freeing" of Hamlet. The editors' discerning analyses of performances by Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Almereyda, and Simon Russell Beal drive home the point that Hamlet today remains restless and unpredictable.

~ Kenneth Sprague Rothwell, Professor Emeritus, University of Vermont
Author, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television