[.ca] The Riverside Shakespeare (ISBN 0395754909)

As stated earlier, notation format nearly ruins this edition:
I haven't read the other completed works extensively (although the Bevington and Norton editions seem to be the ones most highly praised), but the footnote format of the Riverside is so irritating that I'm selling the copy I bought last year for the first half of my 2nd-year Shakespeare survey course, and picking up either the Norton or the Bevington (although I have yet to personally see Bevington's footnote format). As was stated before, here are the problems with the annotation/footnotes: The lines are numbered in a standard "every-fifth-line" format. This would be fine if we as readers weren't required to know exactly what line we're on at all times, but the footnotes demand this. For example: "Therefore thy threat'ning colors now wind up" is King John, V.ii.73. Unless you are counting the actual number of each line in your head as you read (impossible, it seems) you will only know we're on line 73 when you look over to the right, see lines 70 and 75 marked, and then quickly estimate/count the lines in between. The problem is the note at the bottom, which simply says: 73. wind: furl. Like the earlier reviewer said, to figure out whether or not a footnote exists, you must read a line or two, determine what line number(s) you've just read through a line-counting process, and then go down to the footnotes to see if anything matches. Once you've matched the line number to the footnote, you have to go back to the line and find the word that's footnoted, because it's not marked in any way. The Norton method (while some find it intrusive) is certainly easier for students, and the Bevington method sounds interesting (giving the line numbers in the margin only where there is a footnote existsing). The Riverside is just too irritating for most students to use. Some say this method slows the reading process down, and forces one to go through the text more slowly, thus giving a closer reading. To this I'd say that the process of line-counting and stopping every 2-3 lines to "check" for footnotes that may not exist (besides the process of word-matching once a footnote is found) perverts the close reading just as much or moreso than any sort of footnotes condusive to easier, faster reading ever could.

A solid if limited edition:
I would not myself prescribe this edition if I needed to choose one for, say, a year-long course on Shakespeare, but it is respectable and valuable nonetheless, and I have never minded my students using it. In comparison to the Norton, it is far more sensible, level-headed, and sharper in its selection of what is relevant to the needs of most readers. It offers help in a way that for example the Oxford unannotated Complete Works does not. The level of scholarship is usually very sound, in all areas. However, the edition lacks the required intellectual life, to my mind, which it should have and which I find in David Bevington's edition (and, despite some perversities, in the Norton); it is in some ways a bit perfunctory, unenterprising, and not sufficiently incisive in its insights. This is also an edition which at times unduly tends to favour the interests of academics over those of ordinary readers. The text, notably, preserves a number of features which are quite unnecessarily archaic to a modern reader. Who benefits from being faced with such spellings as "bumbast" rather than "bombast"? The introductions are more often useful or predictable than truly engaging, and the explanatory notes are in several places not as informative as they should be. Even so, this is an edition of considerable merit, and one that those who for some mysterious reason do not wish to buy David Bevington's excellent edition would probably be best served by. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

Much Better to Use Than Norton:
I bought this edition after using the Norton in my last semester Shakespeare class, and have found my reading of the plays for this semester's class much more enjoyable. The format is beautiful: the pages are thicker, lie flatter, and hold more content. Unlike the Norton, whose footnote numbers interrupt the reading of the text, forcing you to lose momemtum, the Riverside's are unobtrusive, available if you need them and when you want them. The introductions are prescient, interesting, and well-written. The text itself is more accurate, also. Harold Bloom, for example, in his introduction to The Invention of The Human, says he uses the Riverside and Arden, and that the Oxford (upon which the Norton is based) tries to publish the worst possible poetry. This I found amusing, if not also accurate.

correction:
in response to 'Much Better to Use Than Norton', Harold Bloom wrote that the New Oxford edition was the worst, I don't know which version this is based on.

Great for the Ritual:
My favorite part of acting are the the little rituals that ALL actors have. As a young actor, and one who hopes to focus mainly on the classical stage, my most important ritual is reading the play for the first time, unencumbered by ideas of "How am I going to do this?" I like to sit with a nice stogie and a drink and read the thing for all that's there. Not just my part. That being said. I love this edition of Shakespeare more than any other. It seems to me to be fairly close to the first folio and has a good deal of notes, while not too intrusive in the flow of reading. It feels like a great religious tome. And I hauled it all over London for a summer for an added workout. Great!!