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
The Plays of William Shakespeare him with the income and recognition that he needed. However, a full edition of Shakespeare would require a publisher to make a large commitment of time and money, so Johnson decided to begin by focusing on a single play, "Macbeth". Johnson began work on "Macbeth" to provide a sample of what he thought could be achieved in a new edition of Shakespeare. He got much of his information while working on the "Harleian Catalogue", a catalogue of the collection of works and pamphlets owned by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. He published this work, along with