This self-contained, free-standing volume gives readers the Second Quarto text. In his illustrated introduction to the play's historical, cultural, and performance contexts, Neil Taylor presents a thorough survey of critical approaches to the play. He addresses the challenges faced in reading, editing, or acting a play with the depth of content and tradition that possesses. He also establishes the historical and cultural context in which the play was written and explains the arguments about the merits and deficiencies of the First and Second Quarto and the First Folio. Taylor points to the many novelists, both men and women, whose work refers to or bears commonalities with , to suggest an ongoing to need to resolve "the continuing mystery of " in print and on stage. An appendix contains the additional passages found only in the 1623 text, and other appendices on the editorial process, the traditions regarding the act division at 3.4/4.1, casting, and music are also included.Table of Contents

List of illustrations

General editors' preface

PrefaceINTRODUCTION

The challenges of

The challenge of acting

The challenge of editing

The challenge to the greatness of : versus

in our time

The soliloquies and the modernity of

and Freud

Reading against the tradition

in Shakespeare's time

at the turn of the century

The challenge of dating

Was there an earlier play?

Are there any early references to Shakespeare's play?

Can we date in relation to other contemporary plays?

's first performances

The story of

Murder most foul

An antic disposition

Sentences', speeches and thoughts

The composition of

The quartos and the Folio

The quartos

The First Folio

The relationship of Q2 to Q1

The relationship of F to Q2

What, then, of Q1?

Editorial practice

Why a three-text edition?

on stage and screen

Hamlet and his points

Enter the director

and politics

Novel Hamlets

Hamlet meets Fielding, Goethe, Dickens and others

and women novelists

Prequels and sequels

The continuing mystery of

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK (The Second Quarto, 1604-5)APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Folio-only passages

Appendix 2: Textual discussion

Appendix 3: Editorial conventions, sample edited passages and a comparison of scenes across the three texts

Appendix 4: The act division at 3.4/4.1

Appendix 5: Casting

Appendix 6: MusicAbbreviations and references

Abbreviations used in notes

Works by and partly by Shakespeare

Editions of Shakespeare collated

Other works citedIndex