The Plays of William Shakespeare in perspective, we have only to remind ourselves what Johnson brought to it – an assemblage of almost every qualification we should ideally like to have brought to this kind of work with the single exception of patience... Operating in and through these qualities was his own extensive knowledge of human nature and life. No Shakespearean critic or editor has ever approached him in this respect. John Wain, another of Johnson's biographers, claimed, "There is no better statement of the reason why Shakespeare needs to be edited, and what aims an editor can reasonably set himself" than Johnson's "Proposal". The
The Cambridge Shakespeare first quarto of "Henry V", quarto "King Lear", the "Richard III", the quarto of "Othello", the first quarto of "Romeo and Juliet", and "The Taming of a Shrew", an alternate version of "The Taming of the Shrew". The general editors of the series are Philip Brockbank (1984-1990) and Brian Gibbons (1990-present), with individual editors, or pairs of, assigned to cover separate plays and poetry. The Cambridge Shakespeare The Cambridge Shakespeare is a long-running series of critical editions of William Shakespeare's works published by Cambridge University Press. The name encompasses three distinct series: "The Cambridge Shakespeare" (1863–1866), "The New Shakespeare" (1921–1969),