William Shakespeare and Others

The reputation of many of the plays in this volume has been tarnished somewhat by their apparent effrontery in presuming to crowd onto the Shakespeare band wagon. In fact they often work brilliantly on stage. As proved at the RSC, Arden of Faversham is a terrific murder thriller, Edward III and Thomas More, intriguing takes on history, while Mucedorus, one of the most popular plays in Shakespeare's day, has still to be proved in production. We know very little about how the stable of playwrights at the Rose, or at the Globe, collaborated. Did one writer do the plotting, another the dialogue? We'll probably never know - but this book provides a fascinating insight into some of the plays in which it has been claimed Shakespeare himself may have had a hand.' - Gregory Doran, RSC Artistic Director 'How we answer that most vexing of questions - 'What is Shakespearean?'-tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the author and his age. This outstanding and beautifully conceived edition, which explores ten plays long attributed to Shakespeare but currently excluded from the canon, allows us to revisit that question afresh and richly informed, and will prove invaluable for actors, playgoers, students, and scholars.' - James Shapiro, Professor of English at Columbia University, USA and author of 1599 and Contested Will. 'Meet the 'other' Shakespeare: not Shakespeare the solitary writer, the 'lone genius', but Shakespeare the reviser, rewriter and collaborator. Shakespeare and Others reassesses what was once called the 'apocrypha', and provides, for the first time, fully up-to-date editions of the plays in which Shakespeare may plausibly have had a hand. Consisting of annotated, modern-spelling texts accompanied by interviews with theatrical practitioners, this unique collection will appeal equally to readers and performers. It is a must have book for lovers of Shakespeare on page and stage.' - Tiffany Stern, Professor of English at Oxford University, UK 'A rich collection of early modern plays that are entertaining, exciting and often simply superb.' - Peter Holland, University of Notre Dame, USA 'In evaluating candidates, Bate and Rasmussen tread the ground between Victorian inclusiveness and modernist scrupulousness...helpful tables at the beginning of each play give readers the basis to decide authorship issues for themselves. Summing up: recommended' - CHOICE 'Bate and Rasmussen put the subject in a characteristically engaging and accessible way...the most important effect of this book may indeed be its encouragement of work on the non-Shakespearean drama' - TLS 'William Shakespeare and Others challenges readers to consider their own perception of what is and what is not Shakespeare against a background of varied authorship analyses... The clearly printed texts invite the reader to engage in the debate at first hand.' - Thomas Merriam, Notes & Queries 'The ten plays collected in William Shakespeare & Others are worth serious attention ...it is difficult to imagine anyone seriously interested in Shakespeare who would not want to read these plays...Bate and Rasmussen deserve our gratitude for re-presenting these fascinating dramas so handsomely and conveniently for today's readership' - Standpoint 'The greatness of Shakespeare's art has misled many readers imagining that his genius was somehow beyond history. Among the virtues of William Shakespeare & Others is that it corrects that misapprehension. Shakespeare was firmly of his age in the way he wrote and worked...the evidence of collaboration demonstrates that the author was a jobbing playwright' - The Times 'a major edition of collaborative plays bearing the Bard's name.' - The Observer 'This is the definitive account of what else [Shakespeare] lent his genius to' - Stratford Observer 'Ultimately, even those unpersuaded by particular claims of Shakespearean presence - like director Terry Hands and his "three different casts of experienced actors" (750) performing Arden of Faversham-can gain much from this twenty-first century collaboration involving scholars andperformers, mentors and dedicated students of Shakespeare and his apocrypha, and yet another ambitious, often-inspiring attempt to speak with the dead, be it with Shakespeare or with those still all-too-shadowy "others." - Diana E Henderson, Renaissance Quarterly 'Eminent Shakespeare scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen have collected 10 plays known as The Shakespeare Apocrypha for the first time in more than 100 years...this major new edition of collaborative plays has the only scene from any play to survive in Shakespeare's own handwriting' - The Birmingham Post 'The volume offers us a provocative glimpse of a world in which authorship is communal and complex, and thereby takes us further along the road towards properly understanding Shakespeare as, in the fullest sense, a man of the theatre' - Around the Globe '[The] interchange between theatrical scholars and practitioners is one of the highlights of the RSC publishing venture, and much to be applauded. Anyone interested in this form of collaboration, and in the collaborations which so occupied Shakespeare himself, will undoubtedly wish to add this volume to their shelves.' - Ian Donaldson, Australian Book Review

Developed in partnership with The Royal Shakespeare Company, this is the first edition for over a hundred years of the fascinatingly varied body of plays that has become known as ‘The Shakespeare Apocrypha’.

Developed in partnership with The Royal Shakespeare Company, this is the first edition for over a hundred years of the fascinatingly varied body of plays that has become known as ‘The Shakespeare Apocrypha’. As a companion to their award-winning The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works, renowned scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, supported by a dynamic team of co-editors, now provide a fascinating insight into ten plays in which Shakespeare may have had a hand. A magisterial essay by Will Sharpe provides a comprehensive account of the Authorship and Attribution of each play.

Combining outstanding textual scholarship with elegant writing and design, this unique collection allows us to revisit the question of what is Shakespearean. It is an indispensable book for students, teachers, performers, scholars and lovers of Shakespeare everywhere.