‘While Memory Holds a Seat in this Distracted Globe’: A Look Back at the Arden Shakespeare Third Series (1995–2020)

Summary

The Arden Shakespeare third series began publication in 1995 with editions of Antony and Cleopatra, Henry V and Titus Andronicus. Thanks to the sustained commitment of a generation of scholars and other professionals, it was completed with the publication of Measure for Measure in 2020. Over those twenty-five years, the series navigated mergers and restructuring in the publishing industry, persisting through four changes in publishing house with the support of multiple publishing editors. It realized the vision of four General Editors who set more ambitious parameters and supported more variety in editorial practices than any of their predecessors. The efforts of fifty volume editors produced forty-four new editions that also added four new plays to the series and editions dedicated to the Sonnets and the Poems. These editions addressed some of the most significant changes to Shakespeare studies in this century and, in the process, helped to define editorial practice and shape the modern scholarly series. Now complete, Arden 3 stands as a book of memory and of aspiration, a record of our progress as a field and a profession, and a reminder of how much further we have to go.