The Plays of William Shakespeare was an 18th-century edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. Johnson announced his intention to edit Shakespeare's plays in his Miscellaneous Observations on Macbeth (1745), and a full Proposal for the edition was published in 1756. The edition was finally published in 1765.
In the "Preface" to his edition, Johnson justifies trying to determine the original language of the Shakespearean plays. To benefit the reading audience, he added explanatory notes to various passages. Later editors followed Johnson's lead and sought to determine an authoritative text of Shakespeare.
Read more about The Plays Of William Shakespeare: Background, Johnson's Shakespeare, Critical Response
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“These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“O! grief hath changed me since you saw me last,
And careful hours with time’s deformèd hand
Have written strange defeatures in my face.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)