Each volume in the Barnes & Noble Shakespeare includes:

* New Scholarship – Premiere scholars introduce each play with contemporary scholarship. An essay on editing the text provides an in-depth look at the quartos and folios used in the edition.

* Contextualizing Essays – Essays on Shakespeare’s England, language, and life, along with essays on performing Shakespeare and significant performances frame the play in both historical and theatrical context for readers. A look at the lasting influence of the play on music, art, film, and dance creates an interdisciplinary framework with which to approach the play.

* Better Notes – Through one-word margin definitions, facing-page glosses, and longer end notes after the play, our innovative approach to notes pulls readers away from the text fewer times while providing them with more information and comprehensive analysis.

* Further Reading – An annotated bibliography of titles, hand-selected by the introduction author, takes readers beyond the edition for further reading.

Oxford School Shakespeare is an acclaimed edition especially designed for students, with accessible on-page notes and explanatory illustrations, clear background information, and rigorous but accessible scholarly credentials. In this edition of Romeo and Juliet, illustrations have been extended and updated; the preliminary notes have been expanded; reading lists have been updated, and include websites; and the classroom notes have been brought in line with recent practice.

Books in this new, illustrated series present complete texts of Shakespeare's plays. However, the lines are set up so students can see the bard's original poetic phrases printed side-by-side and line-by-line with a modern "translation" on the facing page.

Introducing each play is a general essay covering Shakespeare's life and times. At the beginning of each of the five acts in every play, a two-page spread describes what is about to take place. The story's background is explained, followed by brief descriptions of key people who will appear in the act, details students should watch for as the story unfolds, discussion of the play's historical context, how the play was staged in Shakespeare's day, and explanation of puns and plays on words that occur in characters' dialogues.

Following each act, a closing spread presents questions and discussion points for use as teachers' aids.

This edition of one of Shakespeare's most popular and attractive plays adopts a radically new approach to the text. It offers modernized texts not only of the 1599 'good' quarto, but also of the short, or 'bad' quarto of 1597, regarding each as an independent witness to a 'mobile text' which changed in composition as Shakespeare wrote it and which has continued to evolve throughout its richly varied performance history, not only in the theatre but also in film, television, opera, and even ballet. The longer and more familiar text, first printed in 1599, is presented along with a detailed explanatory commentary sensitive to both literary and theatrical issues. The earlier, shorter text is annotated only where it differs significantly from the later.

In addition to considering issues of performance, the Introduction traces the Romeo and Juliet narrative from its origins in myth through its adaptation in the novella, a form which changed the story in subtle ways as it crossed national boundaries from Italy to France to England. It shows how Shakespeare's transmutation of the story reflects contemporary concerns with love, death, adolescence, and patriarchism, and illuminates his artistic experimentations with poetry, style, rhetoric, and dramatic form.

-An extensive overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater
-Special introduction to the play by the editor
-Source from which Shakespeare derived Romeo and Juliet
-Dramatic criticism from the past and present
-A comprehensive stage and screen history
-Text, notes, and commentaries
-List of recommended readings

This Dover edition, first published in 1993, contains the unabridged text of Romeo and Juliet as published in volume VI of the second edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Macmillan and Co., 1893. The introduction and notes have been prepared especially for this edition.

May be used in its entirety, in adaptation or in any other way for theatrical productions, professional and amateur, in the Unites States, without fee, permission, or acknowledgement.

Each edition includes:

* Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play

* Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play

* Scene-by-scene plot summaries

* A key to famous lines and phrases

* An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language

* An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play

* Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books

Each Arden Shakespeare edition provides:

* A clear and authoritative text, edited to the highest standards of scholarship.

* Detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text.

* A full, illustrated introduction to the play's historical, cultural and performance contexts.

* An in-depth survey of critical approaches to the play.

* A full index to the introduction and notes.

* A select bibliography of reference and further reading.

Contains an essay entitled "Shakespeare and His Stage" and an Introduction. Otherwise, only the text of the play is presented.