The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers * a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings * on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions, and much else * detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances, and changing critical attitudes to the play * illustrated with production photographs and related art * full index to introduction and commentary * durable sewn binding for lasting use not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth- century scholarship. Times Literary Supplement

List of Illustrations Introduction Editorial Procedures Abbreviations and References THE MOST EXCELLENT AND LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET An Excellent Conceited Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Q1) Index

`many students will no doubt relish the fullness of Professor Levenson's notes. Indeed, they may often be particularly grateful for the care with which she directs readers to even fuller discussions to be found elsewhere' The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207

`Professor Levenson provides an excellent and often very thought-provoking account of performance history, and many of her most interesting discussions and annotations relate to questions of staging, traditional, unusual, or possible' The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207

`excellent decision to include the whole of the Q1 text as well as Q2' The Review of English Studies, Vol.52, No.207