The Oxford Shakespeare The Oxford Shakespeare The Oxford Shakespeare is the range of editions of William Shakespeare's works produced by Oxford University Press. The Oxford Shakespeare is produced under the general editorship of Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Oxford University Press first published a complete works of Shakespeare in 1891. Entitled "The Complete Works", it was a single-volume modern-spelling edition edited by William James Craig. This 1891 text is not directly related to the series known as the "Oxford Shakespeare" today, which is freshly re-edited. The "Oxford Shakespeare" includes a "Complete Works" edited by John Jowett, William Montgomery, Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells,
The Plays of William Shakespeare "A Dictionary of the English Language", Warburton's publishers, Tonson et al., granted him permission to work on Shakespeare. In the "Proposal", Johnson describes the various problems with previous editions of Shakespeare and argues how a new edition, written by himself, would correct these problems. In particular, Johnson promised to "correct what is corrupt, and to explain what is obscure". He would accomplish this by relying on "a careful collation of all the oldest copies" and to read "the same story in the very book which Shakespeare consulted". Unlike other editors who "slight their predecessors", Johnson claimed that "all that is