PREFATORY NOTE

Summary

The appearance of the present volume leaves another eight or nine to be published in this edition. But for unforeseen accidents, the task might be accomplished single-handed in another eight or nine years. Both the publishers and I are, however, anxious to quicken the pace; my chief reason being the Psalmist's warning to septuagenarians. To this end I have sought help from others, and have been fortunate in securing it from three well-known scholars, Dr Alice Walker, Mr J. C. Maxwell, and Professor Duthie of McGill and Aberdeen; the last consenting to collaborate in two texts, this one and King Lear, before setting his hand to The Oxford Shakespeare, which he inherits from R. B. McKerrow. The preparation of King Lear is well forward, while Dr Walker is engaged with me on Othello and Mr Maxwell on Pericles, two plays which they will shortly follow, it is hoped, with Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens. Yet, when I observe that Professor Duthie and I began editing Romeo and Julie in 1949, subscribers will be wise not to expect too early a completion of the undertaking. One never knows, indeed, what one may find in Shakespeare. And that the settlement of the present text has not proved an exactly easy job will be evident from our Note on the Copy and from the fact that, as the Notes indicate, we have been obliged to leave some points still undecided.