This is the first Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen. Largely ignored for centuries because of doubts about its authorship and its subject matter, once considered distasteful, it is surprisingly relevant to many current interests. Lois Potters valuable edition gives a full exposition of contemporary claims as to authorship and genre, discussing all the elements of collaborative writing not only the two authors themselves but their historical, theatrical and literary contexts. She argues that, complex as the collaboration process was, the end product can be discussed as a coherent work because of and not despite the circumstances of its production. Potter supplies new information on sources and, drawing on her extensive experience as a theatre critic, discusses the plays afterlife and compares a number of recent stagings of the play. Potters The Two Noble Kinsmen...shows how, even in the case of a play with a comparatively limited performance history, understanding of performance can inform every aspect of an edition...as usual with the Arden series, it is the amplitude and intelligence of the commentary that is so striking. Peter Holland, Times Literary Supplement.
Completely re-edited, the New Folger Library editions of Shakespeare's plays put readers in touch with current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. Each freshly edited text is based directly on what the editors consider the best early printed version of the play. Each volume contains full explanatory notes on pages facing the text of the play, as well as a helpful introduction to Shakespeare's language. The accounts of William Shakespeare's life, his theater, and the publication of his plays present the latest scholarship, and the annotated reading lists suggest sources of further information. The illustrations of objects, clothing, and mythological figures mentioned in the plays are drawn from the Library's vast holdings of rare books. At the conclusion of each play there is a full essay by an outstanding scholar who assesses the play in light of today's interests and concerns.
