The Yale Shakespeare is the only one-volume edition of Shakespeare’s complete works designed for the general reader that provides annotations on each page of text. The original project, undertaken by Yale University Press in the early part of this century, produced a forty-volume edition: the thirty-seven individual plays, he poems, the sonnets, and a brief biography. It was the culmination of the editorial labors of more than two dozen renowned scholars. A second edition, thoroughly revised, was issued in the decade following the Second World War. That edition corrected several textual and factual errors in the first edition, as well as incorporating contemporary research in Shakespearean studies. Could The Yale Shakespeare possibly be improved? The answer, handsomely demonstrated in this new edition, is yes. The original pocket-sized volumes were too small to allow any of the longest of Shakespeare's verse lines to appear as its own full line on the page. This new edition restores each line of Shakespeare's verse to its own line of text. By virtue of its size, this spacious one-volume edition presents the reader with an accurate rendering of Shakespeare's poetic rhythms. The text, printed on acid-free paper for greater longevity, has been completely redesigned and reset in an elegant and readable typeface. The larger page also allows for a more comfortable spacing between the lines, and insures ample room to accommodate the notes at the bottom.