Excerpt from A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare The Shakespeare Club, - 'many millions strong' as Christopher North says, - is made up of readers of Shakespeare and students of Shakespeare. All are readers, and some at times students. When reading Shakespeare, we resign ourselves to the mighty current, and let it bear us along whithersoever it will; we see no shoals, heed no rocks, need no pilot. Whether spoken from rude boards or printed in homely form, the words are Shakespeare's, the hour is his, and a thought of texts is an impertinence. But when we study Shakespeare, then (r.u mood changes; no longer are we 'sitting at a play, ' the passive recipients of impressions through the eye and ear, but we weigh every word, analyse every expression, sift every phrase, that no grain of art or beauty which we can assimilate shall escape. To do this to our best advantage we must have Shakespeare's own words before us. No other words will avail, even though they be those of the wisest and most inspired of our day and generation. We must have Shakespeare's own text; or, failing this, the nearest possible approach to it. We shall be duly grateful to the wise and learned, who, where phrases are obscure, give us the words which they believe to have been Shakespeare's; but, as students, we must have under our eyes the original text, which, however stubborn it may seem at times, may yet open its treasures to our importunity, and reveal charms before undreamed of. This original text is to be found in the First edition of his Works, published in 1623, and usually known as the First Folio, which was presumably printed from the words written by Shakespeare's own hand, or from Stage copies adapted from his manuscripts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.