TEMPLE SHAKESPEARE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 7

TEMPLE SHAKESPEARE

A Popular Series Issued. In New Edition “The New Temple Shakespeare,” edited by M. R. Ridley (London: Dent). It is now forty years since the Temple Shakespeare was first published, and as since that time there have been many important developments in Shakespearean research, particularly in regard to text, the original edition lias become somewhat out of date. It is particularly pleasing to welcome the publishers’ enterprise in issuing a new edition, in view of the fact that they might well have rested upon the reputation gained by the original series of which five million volumes were sold. The task of presenting an authoritative text has been given to Mr. M. R. Ridley, an Oxford English Literature tutor, who has already made his name as critic and scholar. His aim has been to present to the reader the nearest possible approximation to what Shakespeare actually wrote and he has based his text on the earliest reliable printed text. His prefaces are concise and entirely adequate and to them has been added a novel feature, extracts from famous criticisms of the plays. Mr. Eric Gill has been responsible for the lay-out and typography of the books, each of which contains two engravings by him. The eight volumes so far issued in this new edition are “Hamlet,” ‘Timon of Athen,” “Titus Andronicus,” “As You Like It," “A Mid-summer Night’s Dream,” “The Comedy of Errors,”' “Coriolanus” and “The Sonnets.” Others will be issued at the rate of two a month until the forty are completed.