About the Internet Shakespeare Editions Website
In a busy month, our server receives requests from around the world for over 3.5 million pages, and many visitors stay to examine dozens of pages. While our audience is global, our statistics show a high proportion of visitors from educational institutions.
Those who visit our site discover a "one-stop shop" of resources in Shakespeare study: we publish in the areas of Shakespeareʼs texts, contexts, and performance.
Text
We publish several versions of Shakespeare's works: old-spelling transcriptions, modern editions, and facsimile images of the originals. These works are being re-edited specifically for the digital medium by an international team of scholars. The works are initially published as "pre-prints" so that they can be accessed in draft form; when the editorial process is complete each page indicates that the contents have been peer reviewed. The fully edited works are annotated to a deep scholarly level, and are accompanied by a text-base of supplementary and supporting materials. All plays are currently published in old-spelling versions, and twenty-two plays and most of the poems now appear in modern spelling.
These plays have been completed and published online—and the list is growing:
- As You Like It, edited by David Bevington (University of Chicago)
- Julius Caesar, edited by John Cox (Hope College)
- Henry V, edited by James Mardock (University of Reno, Nevada)
- Twelfth Night, edited by David Carnegie and Mark Houlahan (Victoria University of Wellington, University of Waikato, New Zealand)
- Henry IV, Part 1, edited by Rosemary Gaby (University of Tasmania)
- The Winter's Tale, edited by Hardin Aasand (Dickinson State University)
Many more works are well on the way. The Tempest, Othello, King John, and
Richard II are substantially complete; David Bevington's
Hamlet already has no fewer than four versions of the play available in modern spelling.
Distilled versions of our online texts are also appearing in print. Our modern-spelling texts are being published by Broadview Press as a series of volumes that provide students with a convenient starting point for more in-depth study online. Penguin Books has licensed our old-spelling texts for a forthcoming version of the First Folio.
Context
Shakespeare's Life and Times is a multimedia resource of over 1,000 virtual pages for those undertaking research in the context in which Shakespeare was writing; it is aimed at introductory university-level students, and provides contextual bibliographies for further study in the library. Sections of the site deal with Shakespeare's life, the stage he wrote for, and the background of ideas, politics, literature, and art.
Professors Kate McPherson (Utah Valley University) and Kate Moncrief (Washington College) are currently editing a new edition of Shakespeare's Life and Times (SLT 2.0).
Shakespeare was not alone as a writer in his period. Unfortunately many works of his contemporaries are out of print, or available only in expensive editions. To remedy this situation, the ISE is providing its software and publication platform to two sibling organizations that are creating scholarly editions of early modern writers other than Shakespeare: the Queen's Men Editions (University of McMaster) and Digital Renaissance Editions (University of Western Australia).
Performance
Our database of Shakespeare in Performance records current and historical performances, providing a dynamic view of the way his plays have been interpreted over time and in different cultures. Theaters across the world contribute to the database, updating it with new performances each year, creating both for themselves and those around the world interested in theater a lasting digital archive of performance. We provide a free promotional service to theater companies by posting their upcoming productions online in our Shakespeare Calendar, and by highlighting them on each page of the site.
The ISE Chronicle, edited by Dr. Kevin Quarmby (Oxford College of Emory University) offers reviews of Shakespeare productions around the world, written by expert and new reviewers.
Please become a Friend of the ISE by filling out our membership form.