Romeo and Juliet: The New Oxford Shakespeare

’A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life’

This edition provides a clear and accessible introduction to Shakespeare’s enduring tale of ill-fated lovers. Hannah August pays particular attention to the dramatic function of the famous prologue and the significance of the play’s ending. August also explores ways of reading the play as a text that queries rather than validates the tenets of heterosexual romantic love, proving that at multiple points throughout the play’s four-hundred-years-plus stage history, Verona has more queer than the prevailing view of Romeo and Juliet as a core text of heterosexual love might lead us to believe. It includes a substantial section which addresses the play’s early modern production and reception history in both print and performance, as well as providing an overview of later performance traditions drawing on up-to-date examples of key productions.

The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare’s works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare’s work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare’s work.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

William Shakespeare

Hannah August is Senior Lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand. She holds a PhD and MA from King’s College London and undergraduate degrees from the Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Otago in New Zealand. She is the author of Playbooks and their Readers in Early Modern England (2022) and several book chapters and articles on the history of reading early modern drama.

Francis X. Conor is Associate Professor of English at Wichita State University, where he teaches courses in Shakespeare, Early Modern Literature, and the history of the book. An associate editor for the New Oxford Shakespeare, he is the author of Literary Folios and Ideas of the Book in Early Modern England (2014), and his work has appeared in Shakespeare Survey, PBSA, Sidney Journal, and elsewhere.