Shakespeare and the Book

An account of Shakespeare's plays as they were transformed from scripts into books.

Shakespeare and the Book is a lively and learned account of Shakespeare's plays as they were transformed from scripts to be performed into books to be read, and eventually from popular entertainments into the centerpieces of the English literary canon. Kastan examines the motives and activities of Shakespeare's first publishers, the curious eighteenth-century schizophrenia that saw Shakespeare radically modified on stage at the very moment that scholars were working to establish and restore the 'genuine' texts, and the exhilarating possibilities of electronic media for presenting Shakespeare now to new generations of readers. This is an important contribution to Shakespearean textual scholarship, to the history of the early English book trade, and to the theory of drama itself. Shakespeare and the Book persuades its readers of the resiliency of the book itself as a technology and of Shakespeare's own extraordinary resiliency that has been made possible not least by print.

1. Introduction; 2. From playhouse to printing house: or, making a good impression; 3. From quarto to folio: or, size matters; 4. From contemporary to classic: or, textual healing; 5. From codex to computer: or, presence of mind.

This is a lively and learned account of Shakespeare's plays as they were transformed from scripts to be performed into books to be read. It is an important contribution to Shakespearean textual scholarship, to the history of the early English book trade, and to the theory of drama itself.

David Scott Kastan is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is a specialist on Shakespeare and early modern culture. His most recent book is Shakespeare After Theory (1999) and his other publications include Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time (1981), Staging the Renaissance (1991, edited with Peter Stallybrass), Critical Essays on Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' (1995), The New History of Early English Drama (1997, edited with John Cox, and winner of the 1998 ATHE award for the best book on theatre history), and A Companion to Shakespeare (1999).