Review (PDF) The Norton Shakespeare (Third Edition) (Vol. One-Volume)
Both an enhanced digital edition―the first edited specifically for undergraduates―and a handsome print volume, The Norton Shakespeare, Third Edition, provides a freshly edited text, acclaimed apparatus, and an unmatched value. The attractive print and digital bundle offers students a great reading experience at an affordable price in two ways―a hardcover volume for their dorm shelf and lifetime library, and a digital edition ideal for in-class use. Students can access the ebook from their computer, tablet, or smartphone via the registration code included in the print volume at no additional charge. As one instructor summed it up, “It’s a long overdue step forward in the way Shakespeare is taught.”
Hardcover: 3536 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 3 edition (July 22, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393934993
ISBN-13: 978-0393934991
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 3.1 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #158,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #268 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > English Literature #276 in Books > Literature & Fiction > British & Irish > Shakespeare > Works #1286 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays
This is a wonderful one-volume Bard. The layout is quite good, easy to follow. The glosses are to the right of the puzzling (to 21st century people) words, with scholarly notes footnoted at the bottom. Some nice maps in the back. But the REAL stars of this volume are the extensive and interesting introductions to each play. And the book has a table of contents for the "Digital Edition" which promises some truly nice supplementary materials. (Registering the code that comes with the book is easy; WW Norton has joined with VitalSource to make the digital form online.)There is only one slight problem as of the writing of this review: the only play in the online "Digital Edition" is Romeo and Juliet (though they have posted both Q2 and Q1 online). Also, there are no supplementary materials online yet. Norton (in an email) told me that more plays are coming in August 2015, and in the future. (The copyright date in the book is 2016, so that might be an indication as to when everything will be online.)1 Sept 2015 update: there are now 6 plays in the online digital edition (Richard III, Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, and Macbeth).
I use the Northon anthologies frequently for school but I am disappointed by this one. The size of the text is unmanageable; it would have been better suited for multiple volumes. My main complaint is that the book came with an access code card which read: "Digital Edition features all of the texts, introductions, glosses, and notes in the print book, plus additional versions..." However when I scratched and registered my code, (ensuring I cannot sell it), I found that I could only access a limited number of plays for the "prototype" digital edition. I deem this unacceptable; I paid $75 for an item and cannot utilize it as promised, very disappointed.
The content microscopically details Shakespeare and properly identifies the various sources that are used to create modern Shakespeare, with a digital download included. It is simply 5 star content and presentation. I cannot however feel I am being ripped off paying $50 for a cheap, fat paper back version that will not handle heavy reading and will quickly fall apart. Buyer beware.
Bought for a class. Very well edited, but it's a brick to carry around and I'm not sure how well the spine / binding will hold up over time. It's done pretty good for the semester, but I'm fairly nice to my books.
An exceptional work of Shakespearean scholarship as well as the most thoughtfully edited--perhaps too well. There are, as there were in the previous editions, three versions of "King Lear": a quarto, the folio, and a conflation of the two. Only the most dedicated will appreciate the differences. In a student's volume, which is what this presumably is, a single version, well thought-out--as is the case with the New Cambridge and Arden editions--is enough. The Norton Shakespeare remains the easiest to read: definitions of obscure words and usages are listed with bubbles to the right of the text inline, so one can read the plays more fluidly than one can other editions which rely on footnotes alone. The only reason this version doesn't get five stars is that the work has become so large that it is almost unwieldy. You can't open the text flatly before you: the book is so thick that the pages won't lie flat. It has become something of a casualty of its own success. This Third Edition also has a tie-in with a Norton website which allows the reader to delve even further into the history of the texts and their differences. A "membership" is included with the volume; otherwise, access must be purchased separately.
This book comes with a code to use Norton online which is great because I don't have to carry this huge book everywhere if I don't want to. And online I'm able to listen to some of the acts and see some other cool stuff like the original script. The annotations online are also easier to read because you scroll over the phrases and see them side by side.
The book is large and heavy and awkwardly shaped. I mean, you expect big with complete works, but this one is unwieldy. I've yet to successfully access the digital versions, after one attempt to register and a help-desk request (that expires if you don't respond back fast enough).
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