The text is guaranteed complete and is laid out in strict adherence to Shakespeare’s original verse. This magnificent, 27in x 40in print of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is complemented by an original and dramatic centerpiece depicting the ‘Alas poor Yorick” scene. Zachary Lesser is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Renaissance Drama and the Politics of Publication: Readings in the English Book Trade.A full unabridged edition of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, written circa 1600 and comprising 31,873 words, on a single poster print. In telling the story of this mysterious quarto and tracing the debates in newspapers, London theaters, and scholarly journals that followed its discovery, Lesser offers brilliant new insights on what we think we mean when we talk about Hamlet. Zachary Lesser examines how the improbable discovery of Q1 has forced readers to reconsider accepted truths about Shakespeare as an author and about the nature of Shakespeare's texts. Because this text became widely known only after the familiar version of the play had reached the pinnacle of English literature, its reception has entirely depended on this uncanny temporal oscillation so too has its ongoing influence on twentieth- and twenty-first-century ideas of the play. Flickering between two historical moments-its publication in Shakespeare's early seventeenth century and its rediscovery in Bunbury's early nineteenth-Q1 is both the first and last Hamlet. Q1, as the text is known, has been declared a rough draft, a shorthand piracy, a memorial reconstruction, and a pre-Shakespearean "ur- Hamlet," among other things. Suddenly, the world had to grapple with a radically new-or rather, old- Hamlet in which the characters, plot, and poetry of Shakespeare's most famous play were profoundly and strangely transformed. Nearly all of the plays were first editions, but one stood out as extraordinary: a previously unknown text of Hamlet that predated all other versions. "An extraordinary work of interpretation and an extraordinary work of literary history."-Tiffany Stern, University of OxfordIn 1823, Sir Henry Bunbury discovered a badly bound volume of twelve Shakespeare plays in a closet of his manor house. The rich cast of characters here, including both bit players and eminent scholars, makes the story a Stoppard play waiting to be written."-Douglas Bruster, University of Texas at Austin "Zachary Lesser's fascinating book about Q1 Hamlet details what happened after the discovery of this black sheep in Shakespeare's textual family. But more valuable still are Lesser's own contributions to the debates about the textual and theatrical relationships of Q1/Q2/F."- The Review of English Studies A substantial merit of Lesser's book is the minute detail with which he traces the genesis and evolution of these ideas as they were shaped by nineteenth-century scholarly competitiveness and the emergence of new facts and hypotheses. performs two valuable services: (i) exploring in detail the arguments of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century textual scholars working on Hamlet, and (ii) reexamining the Q1/Q2/F differences to come up with fresh explanations for them. puts lyrical energy into excavating old texts. "Lesser's engrossing book makes textual study alluring even to the nonpractitioner. This highly original book thrusts bibliography up from the footnotes and into the footlights, by showing in fascinating detail how the bibliographical algebra of Q1, Q2, and F has made a crucial contribution to the interpretation and performance of Hamlet."- Times Literary Supplement is to show why textual bibliography matters. Winner of the 2016 Studies in English Literature Elizabeth Dietz Memorial Award "Lesser's great achievement. Paper 2016 | ISBN 9780812223569 | $26.50s | Outside the Americas £19.99Įbook editions are available from selected online vendors An Uncanny History of the Shakespearean Text Zachary Lesser