Help me decide: Complete Works of William Shakespeare - hardback

>>9895946
I'd go for the first. But you should also look into Kevin McDonald's Culture of Critique Series if you want to become more wellrounded intellectually

>>9895946
Get the Sping Books edition.

>>9895959
spring*

>>9895959
Can't find it anywhere. ISBN or product link (new)?

>>9895946
>Complete Works of William Shakespeare - hardback by Barnes and Noble
I have the Barnes & Noble version before their covers went to shit.

I also have the hardback boxed set Wordsworth Edition Complete Works.

I also have a 1915 print of the Comedies from Oxford University Press.

>>9895946
>buying compilations

I'd recommend if you're dropping $20-30 on a volume of Shakespeare you should get the oxford one. You can be sure that they're not just copy-pasting from public domain, that there is real scholarship at work in addition to the extras they have.

>>9896193
>You can be sure that they're not just copy-pasting from public domain
While I agree with you about maybe some extras they have, and I would normally agree that copy pasting from the public domain on lesser known writers is generally a bad idea, copy pasting shakespeare is pretty much fine because everything is pretty much well established and distributed flush around the market at this point.

>>9896214
>copy pasting shakespeare is pretty much fine because everything is pretty much well established and distributed flush around the market at this point.
This is wrong though

>>9896299
explain further. Have his works not been public now for centuries?

Are you saying to reread them and compare them with the first folio? Because, sure, I guess I'd agree with that on principle. Beyond that, what are you trying to do?

>>9896149
>I have the Barnes & Noble version before their covers went to shit.
Will the cover of my copy be the same as yours? How do I check?
>I also have the hardback boxed set Wordsworth Edition Complete Works.
ISBN or product page?
I know Wordsworth hardback complete of Shakespeare but it isn't boxed. And the print of that one is awful. The Canterbury print is perfect, uncomperable to the Wordsworth.

>>9896193
The Oxford edition is also very close to the prize of the ones I mentioned. Is that the best one, the flawless one (not another copy paste of public domain)?

>>9896366
>Will the cover of my copy be the same as yours? How do I check?
I was just fucking with you, man. I have the B&N version from '94. They're all the same inside, they just update the cover from time to time. It's a B&N book, nothing special. Just messing around.
>ISBN or product page?
lol. Same here. It's this:
https://www.biblio.com/book/complete-works-william-shakespeare-three-volumes/d/864850145

>>9896347
For example hamlet has a first quarto, a second quarto, and a first folio edition. All of them different.
Q1 is about half the length and has some major differences in dialogue, so we can assume the other 2 are more reliable/useful. But still the fact remains that the play was probably performed in the Q1 format.
The biggest problem is how to handle the difference between Q2 and F. The first folio has 200+ lines less than Q2 and some shorter material is added.
The most wide spread theory is that the cuts were made to make the performance shorter. Then should Q2, the "full" play be published or the "final authorative" folio?
Some editions use a mix of both.
In the end it's the editors choice which edition they print and what they keep and exclude, and it does make a difference.

>>9896586
All through Shakespeare's working life, though, the plays were copied by people in the crowd, printed, and distributed without permission. We know there were many errors as some of these people could not read let alone write well, let alone copy things word for word as they were being spoken. Many of these were from memory as well. Sure, some were probably made shorter, as there were many business decisions made by Shakespeare and company, particularly notable when they moved to the Black Friar's, but I would hardly call the first folio anything less than the official or the authoritative version. It's the best we have.

Unless you're one of those people who doesn't believe Shakespeare was anywhere near as good as people give him credit for and that everything was cleaned up and refined and added and embellished over the posthumous years before publication of the first folio which...I wouldn't necessarily say you're wrong, but that's a different conversation altogether.