The Oxford Shakespeare - The Complete Works

The Complete Works

The Oxford Shakespeare includes a Complete Works edited by John Jowett, William Montgomery, Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells, appeared in 1986. It includes all of Shakespeare's plays and poems, as well as a biographical introduction. Each work is given a single-page introduction. There are no explanatory notes, but there is a glossary at the back of the book. Two related books accompany the main volume: William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion provides comprehensive data on editorial choices for scholars of the plays, and William Shakespeare: An Old-Spelling Edition presents the plays in their original spelling.

The Oxford Complete Works differs from other Shakespeare editions in attempting to present the text as it was first performed, rather than as it was first printed. This resulted in many controversial choices: for example, presenting Hamlet with several famous speeches relegated to appendices on the grounds that Shakespeare added them after the original performances; presenting two separate texts of King Lear due to the drastic differences between the two extant texts; and changing the name of Falstaff in Henry IV Part One to 'Oldcastle' due to historical evidence that this name was used in the first performances even though it never survived to print.

The Oxford Complete Works was the first to emphasize Shakespeare's collaborative work, describing Macbeth, Measure for Measure and Timon of Athens as either collaborations with or revisions by Thomas Middleton; Pericles as a collaboration with George Wilkins; Henry VI Part One as a collaboration with several unknown other dramatists; and Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen as collaborations with John Fletcher. It also broke with tradition in presenting Shakespeare's works in chronological order, rather than dividing them by genre.

In 2005, a second edition of the Complete Works was produced. It adds a full text of Sir Thomas More (edited by John Jowett), which may contain passages by Shakespeare, and Edward III (edited by William Montgomery), another play believed to be partly by Shakespeare.

The Norton Shakespeare, published by W.W. Norton, is largely based on the Oxford text, but departs from some of its decisions.