Volume 21, Number 20 · December 12, 1974
A Sullied, Sallied, Solid Text
By Stephen Booth
The Riverside Shakespeare
edited by G. Blakemore Evans et al
Houghton Mifflin, 1,902 pp., $45.00 (two-volume boxed set)
The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare
by Marvin Spevack
Harvard, 1,600 pp., $45.00
The Riverside Shakespeare is, and seems intended to be, a monument to itself. It declares otherwise; a preface by the publisher begins by putting the needs of prospective customers momentarily foremost: 'In the words of the First Folio of 1623, The Riverside Shakespeare is addressed 'To the great Variety of Readers. From the most able, to him that can but spell.' In the plainer language of our day, this means that the book has been designed with the general reader, the student, and the scholar equally in mind.' To make the plainer language of our day plainer still, the book has been designed for three purposes: (1) to join Winston Churchill's multiple memoirs on genuine maple bookshelves; (2) as a textbook for university Shakespeare courses; (3) to be favorably reviewed.
Review, 4576 words
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