William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. Until about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language.

Klappentext

There are 2,000 verbal differences between the text of the First Quarto of Shakespeare's Richard III (1597) and the version in the First Folio (1623). In this Quarto edition the text is accompanied by a collation of variant readings and substantial textual notes. Peter Davison argues that Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, used a memorially reconstructed text of Richard III during a touring performance of the play, and that text provided the manuscript for the 1597 Quarto. The result is a breakthrough in textual studies.

Inhalt
List of figures; Preface; Abbreviations and conventions; Introduction; Characters in order of appearance; The play; Textual notes.