The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii

So You Need The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii

I ran into this exact situation last year when I was preparing lecture notes on the history plays. My grad student had referenced a specific folio-era passage and I couldn't pin down the textual variant without the right annotation layer. I went hunting for The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii and ended up learning more about how these editions actually function than I expected. Most people grab them off the shelf and flip through, which is fine, but you miss half the value if you don't approach them with a strategy. This is the second volume of an annotated scholarly edition of Shakespeare's works. Different publishers have used this title at different times, so you need to check the editor before you buy or download anything. The most common version is the one edited by James L. Calderwood or the Norton Critical edition depending on what year you're looking at. Some are grouped by genre, some by chronological order, and a few are organized as part of a larger boxed set. This matters because it determines what plays you're actually getting. If you are looking at the Calderwood volume, you are getting the comedies and histories with substantial critical apparatus. If it's the Norton version, the annotations tend to be more historically grounded. Both have their place. Neither is perfect.

What Actually Makes an Annotated Edition Worth Using

Here is the thing beginners get wrong. They treat the annotations as footnotes you read once and then ignore. The real value is in the cross-references and the textual notes. A good annotated edition will flag variant readings between the quarto and folio versions, point out editorial emendations that have been adopted or rejected over time, and give you the scholarly debate about problematic passages right where you need it. That saves you from having to consult multiple reference works later. Look for editions that include: Textual notes that explain why a word might differ between sources, historical context notes that are actually useful rather than Wikipedia summaries, performance history that spans centuries not just the twentieth century, and critical bibliography so you can track down further reading.

The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii from reliable publishers usually hits three or four of these. You want at least three. Anything less and you are better off using an unannotated text paired with JSTOR searches.

How to Actually Use It Without Wasting Time

I used to highlight everything in these books. That was inefficient. Now I do two passes. First pass is the play itself, annotated minimally. I mark lines I need to return to, passages that seem tricky, and stage directions that feel ambiguous. Second pass is the apparatus. I go to the notes for only the marked passages. This usually cuts my prep time from about three hours per play down to somewhere around forty-five minutes to an hour depending on how dense the annotations are. For The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii specifically, I found that the historical notes in the comedy sections can be skipped if you already know the general Elizabethan and Jacobean context. The textual variants are where the real work lives. Those are the notes I read carefully. I skim the critical references unless a particular interpretation seems to be building toward something relevant to whatever I am writing about. One edge case that caused me a genuine headache: the folio numbering system. Some plays in this volume are referenced by act, scene, and line. Others in older editions used folio page and column numbers. I spent about twenty minutes trying to match a citation from a secondary source to the text, not realizing the page numbers in my copy were from the original 1623 folio and not the modern pagination. The workaround was simple once I figured it out. The front matter of the volume contains a concordance table mapping folio numbers to modern act-scene-line references. I wish every edition would put that inside the cover instead of burying it in the preliminary pages, but you learn to look there when a citation number doesn't match.

Where to Get a Copy

You can find The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii at university bookstores, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and a few academic resellers. The Norton critical editions tend to run around thirty to forty dollars new. Used copies are often available for fifteen to twenty. If you are a student or a researcher with institutional access, check your library first. Many university libraries have multiple copies and some even allow interlibrary loan for smaller colleges. There are also digital versions. Some publishers offer eBooks with searchable annotations, which is genuinely useful for research. The limitation is that the visual layout matters more in these editions than in regular texts. Annotations are positioned deliberately. A scrollable eBook can break that spatial relationship. I've read that the Perseus Digital Library has public domain Shakespeare texts with some annotation layers, but they do not carry the full apparatus you'd find in the printed Annotated Shakespeare volumes. So if you need the complete scholarly notes, the physical book or a high-quality PDF is the way to go.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

First, do not assume all editions labeled "Annotated Shakespeare" contain the same material. I once ordered what I thought was a specific annotated volume only to receive a completely different compilation. Always verify the editor, publisher, and ISBN before purchasing. The second mistake is treating the annotations as authoritative when they are not. Editors of these volumes make choices about which readings to prefer and which critical interpretations to highlight. They are not neutral. Cross-reference major editorial decisions with at least one other source if you are doing serious textual work. A third issue I noticed is that some annotated editions include appendices or supplementary essays that are actually more valuable than the play annotations themselves. I nearly overlooked the performance history essay in my copy of The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii because I was focused on getting through the text. Reading that essay afterward changed how I understood several of the staging problems in the histories. It was about thirty pages and worth the time.

When This Edition Is the Right Tool

If you are teaching Shakespeare at the undergraduate level, this volume is solid. The annotations are rigorous without being overwhelmingly technical. If you are doing graduate-level textual criticism, you will still need to go beyond it to the Arden or Oxford editions for the deepest textual apparatus. If you are reading for pleasure, any clean text will serve you fine and you probably do not need the annotation weight at all. The Annotated Shakespeare Vol Ii occupies that middle ground that many instructors and serious readers land in, which is why it keeps getting referenced. It does have limitations. The volume is large and heavy. Not ideal for casual carrying. The annotation density varies between plays because different editors may have contributed notes for different sections. Some plays get more thorough coverage than others. And if you need the most up-to-date scholarship on a particular passage, the print edition may already be a year or two behind the current critical conversation. For that, you pair it with recent journal articles. Still, for the price point and the scope of coverage, it remains one of the more practical annotated collections available. I keep mine on the desk. The spine is cracked from use. That is how I know it gets read.