Hamlet

Hamlet’s combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare’s tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays.

Professor Hibbard’s illuminating and original introduction explains the process by which variant texts were fused in the eighteenth century to create the most commonly used text of today. Drawing on both critical and theatrical history, he shows how this gusion makes Hamlet seem a much more ‘problematic’ play than it was when it originally appeared in the First Folio of 1623.