This Arden edition of Hamlet , arguably Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, presents an authoritative, modernized text based on the Second Quarto text with a new introductory essay covering key productions and criticism in the decade since its first publication. A timely up-date in the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death which will ensure the Arden edition continues to offer students a comprehensive and current critical account of the play, alongside the most reliable and fully-annotated text available. “[Thompson and Taylor] give us a text quite different from the edited versions that shaped debate for much of the past 400 years ... There is intellectual consistency to [their] position.” ― Times Literary Supplement “The editors' 168 pages of introduction and 103 pages worth of appendices provide an unprecedented level of contextualization on matters cultural, textual, and theatrical.” ― Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 “The scholarship … remains at the high standard expected from the Arden Series … Probably one of the most ambitious scholarly editions of the play to be published in the past century or so, if only for its attempt to present the textual complexities of the relationships between quartos and folio by printing all three early authoritative versions.” ― Sixteenth Century Journal William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English dramatist, poet, and actor, generally regarded as the greatest playwright of all time. ANN THOMPSON is Emeritus Professor in English at King' s College London UK. Professor Richard Proudfoot served as Senior General Editor of the Arden Shakespeare for 35 years, until his retirement from King's in 1999. In 2001 The Arden Shakespeare published Proudfoot's Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Canon a critical overview of the scholarly achievements made in the field of Shakespeare studies by the end of the twentieth century. Neil Taylor is Professor Emeritus at Roehampton University, UK David Scott Kastan is the George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, USA.