If there ever has been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be the Applause FolioTexts. If there has ever been an accessible version of the Folio, it is this edition, set for the first time in modern fonts.
The Folio is the source of all other editions. The Folio text forces us to re-examine the assumptions and prejudices which have encumbered over four hundred years of scholarship and performance. Notes refer the reader to subsequent editorial interventions, and offer the reader a multiplicity of interpretations. Notes also advise the reader on variations betweenFolios and Quartos.
The heavy mascara of four centuries of Shake spearean glossing has by now glossed over the original countenance of Shakespeare's work. Never has there been a Folio available in modern reading fonts. While other complete Folio editions continue to trade simply on the facsimile appearance of the Elizabethan “look,” none of them is easily and practically utilized in general Shakespeare studiesor performances.
