When I reviewed The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare (Smith, 2016) (RR 2016/255), I noted that “A casual search on ‘Shakespeare’ in Reference Reviews brought up 269 hits (averaging roughly one for every issue of the journal)”. Since that was published – in Volume 30(8) 2016, there have been a further eight hits (as at October 2017) – slightly over the average of one per issue, and yet, when I reviewed the dictionary of Shakespeare and National Identity (Ivic, 2017) (RR 2017/190), I discovered that it was merely one of a whole series of Shakespearean dictionaries, none of which we had reviewed before. Considering the fact that Shakespeare obviously had no particular interest in getting his plays published at all (the theatre owned them, so there would be no financial benefit to him in doing so), I do wonder what he would have made of this extraordinary outflow. Is there any other person or subject which Reference Reviews has touched on once per issue ever since the journal started?
Faced with this plethora of reference tools, one might have thought that the market was satiated but the British Library clearly feels that there is always room for one more, and who am I to say that they are wrong? My only problem is that my bookshelves are full. I am going to have to adopt a “one in, one out” policy. I have a book of Shakespearean chit-chat by Sir Walter Raleigh (no, not that one, this one was a late-Victorian professor) (Raleigh, 1907) which could, perhaps, be a candidate for the Oxfam bookshop.
Although it was sent to Reference Reviews for review, this is not really a reference book. It consists of 45 brief quotations from plays and poems that are reliably thought to be wholly or partly by Shakespeare – starting off with Arden of Faversham and ending with The Two Noble Kinsmen (neither of which were in the canon when I was at school). Each quotation has a short scholarly paragraph by the editor summarising the context and, in a further paragraph, telling us what is known of the performance and publication history. On the opposite page to each quotation is a reproduction of the earliest printed form of the quotation held by the British Library. As the text is taken from the Arden Shakespeare Complete Works (there is a new paperback edition, 2011), it often differs from the first known publication. Thus, Henry V, as in the current version:
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile” and, reproduced from the First Quarto: “We fewe, we happie fewe, we bond of brothers For he today that sheds his blood by mine Shall be my brother, be he nere so base”
This is a handy way of introducing the general reader to the varied and casual way in which Shakespeare’s works were preserved for us.
This is not, of course, a reference tool for looking up quotations from Shakespeare. There are several free online resources for doing that, such as William Shakespeare Quotes and Quotations (www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-quotes.htm) or the WikiQuote site William Shakespeare (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare). The easiest way of finding his use of particular words or phrases is, of course, the invaluable free Concordance of Shakespeare’s Complete Works (www.opensourceshakespeare.org/concordance/). Readers who want to see what the original version of most of the plays actually looked like as they have come down to us can do so by looking at the First Folio online, courtesy of the Bodleian Library (The Bodleian First Folio http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/). There is therefore no reason why any library should acquire this book for reference purposes. Nevertheless, I would recommend it to the general reader. This is a beautifully produced paperback – it looks and feels the way a book should do. It was obviously intended to be sold in the gift shop on the way out of the British Library exhibition, rather than marketed to reference libraries. If any reader is looking for an elegant but inexpensive present for some vaguely literary-minded aunt or similar, then look no further.
On balance, I think Sir Walter just about keeps his place for the moment, but perhaps I could squeeze this in beside him. It is very slim after all, and is a nice little book to have.
