Arden Shakespeare Arden Shakespeare The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been three distinct series of the Arden Shakespeare over the past century, and the third series has not yet been completed. Arden was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary, but the primary reference of the enterprise's title is named after the Forest of Arden, in which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is set. The first series was published by Methuen. Its first
As You Like It Ayres", published in London in 1600 contains a musical setting for the song "It was a lover and his lass" from "As You Like It". This evidence implies that the play was in existence in some shape or other before 1600. It seems likely this play was written after 1598, since Francis Meres did not mention it in his "Palladis Tamia". Although twelve plays are listed in "Palladis Tamia", it was an incomplete inventory of Shakespeare's plays to that date (1598). The new Globe Theatre opened some time in the summer of 1599, and tradition has it that the new