Sir Thomas More

This edition of Sir Thomas More is the first to bring the play into the context of a major Shakespeare series, to provide a substantial critical analysis, and to offer a comprehensive modern stage history. The introduction deals with issues such as the strange involvement of the anti-Catholic spy-hunter Anthony Munday as chief dramatist, the place of Sir Thomas More as a Catholic martyr in Protestant late Elizabethan culture, and the play's representation of a multi-cultural London.The text itself, supported by a searching and detailed commentary, adopts a distinctive presentation that enables readers to keep track of the manuscript and the hands that produced it, whilst engaging with the play as a fascinating theatrical piece.

Sir Thomas More deals with matters so controversial that it may never have reached performance on stage. The authors' determination to deal with rioting and religious politics led to a play that is compelling in its own right but also intriguing as a document of what could, and could not, be articulated in the early modern public theatre. Surviving only as a manuscript text on which Shakespeare was thought to have worked, it can be considered to be the most important play manuscript of the period, owing to its highly complex witness to collaboration between dramatists and to censorship.

“'...Jowett, one of the most gifted and exciting textual scholars around, whose Oxford edition of Richard III belongs right up there in the pantheon of truly great Shakespeare editions, has completed the job boldly, accurately and courteously.''The textual treatment is as full and cogent an analysis as you are ever likely to find, and one of its most refreshing characteristics- apart from the expertise with which it is written- is its honesty...this publication represents its official entry into the Arden Shakespeare canon- and Jowett's excellent edition amply justifies this inclusion.'”

John Jowett’s edition of More is one of the triumphs of the [Third Series] as a whole, elucidating a nightmarishly complex textual history with exemplary clarity. The New Criterion
‘...Jowett, one of the most gifted and exciting textual scholars around, whose Oxford edition of Richard III belongs right up there in the pantheon of truly great Shakespeare editions, has completed the job boldly, accurately and courteously.'‘The textual treatment is as full and cogent an analysis as you are ever likely to find, and one of its most refreshing characteristics- apart from the expertise with which it is written- is its honesty...this publication represents its official entry into the Arden Shakespeare canon- and Jowett's excellent edition amply justifies this inclusion.' The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, June 2011
John Jowett's edition of Sir Thomas More is indispensable reading concerning issues of Elizabethan collaboration and authorship. It implicitly asks: how do we identify a Shakespearean play?...' Sean Elliott, The London Magazine The London Magazine, August 2011
'It is an impressive piece of scholarship, surpassing its predecessor edited by Gabrieli and Melchiori in attention to technical detail, and in tackling the complexities of what some have considered the most politically incorrect Elizabethan play that we possess... The Arden edition succeeds in opening a can of worms which challenges contemporary critical thinking.' Notes and Queries, OUP, September 2011

Professor John Jowett is Chair of Shakespeare Studies at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. He is a Series Editor of the Arden Early Modern Drama series and an Editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works.

This edition of Sir Thomas More is the first to bring the play into the context of a major Shakespeare series, to provide a substantial critical analysis, and to offer a comprehensive modern stage history. The introduction deals with issues such as the strange involvement of the anti-Catholic spy-hunter Anthony Munday as chief dramatist, the place of Sir Thomas More as a Catholic martyr in Protestant late Elizabethan culture, and the play's representation of a multi-cultural London.The text itself, supported by a searching and detailed commentary, adopts a distinctive presentation that enables readers to keep track of the manuscript and the hands that produced it, whilst engaging with the play as a fascinating theatrical piece...Sir Thomas More deals with matters so controversial that it may never have reached performance on stage. The authors' determination to deal with rioting and religious politics led to a play that is compelling in its own right but also intriguing as a document of what could, and could not, be articulated in the early modern public theatre. Surviving only as a manuscript text on which Shakespeare was thought to have worked, it can be considered to be the most important play manuscript of the period, owing to its highly complex witness to collaboration between dramatists and to censorship...

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