Research Guides: Shakespeare Studies: Finding Books

Browsing for Shakespeare in the Stacks

General Collected Works

Complete works

PR 2752 - 2763

Sonnets and Poem collections

PR 2841 - 2843

Sonnets

PR 2848

Individual Plays and Criticism

Copies of the individual plays are arranged alphabetically between PR 2801 - 2839. The play comes first, followed by criticism of the individual play

General Criticism and Biography

Shakespeare biographies PR 2894 - 2920
Shakespeare stage history PR 3091 - 3112
Shakespeare's characters PR 2989
Shakespeare criticism and interpretation (general) PR 2965 - 2979
Shakespeare film and video adaptations (criticism) PR 3093
Shakespeare comedies (criticism) PR 2981
Shakespeare histories (criticism) PR 2982
Shakespeare tragedies (criticism) PR 2983
Shakespeare poetic works (criticism) PR 2984
Shakespeare humor and satire PR 2994
Shakespeare handbooks PR 2895 - 2898
Shakespeare authorship PR 2937 - 2961
Shakespeare's influence PR 2965 - 2971
Shakespeare's knowledge and learning PR 2903
Shakespeare's language PR 3072 - 3088
Shakespeare's political and social views PR 3017 - 3024
Shakespeare and religion PR 3011 - 3012
Shakespeare dictionaries PR 2892

Digital Primary Texts

British Library - Treasures in Full: Quarto Versions of Shakepeare's Plays
See 107 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the 1642 theatre closures. Examine every page of rare historic works; compare different editions side-by-side; choose standard or magnified view; read supporting material by our curators and other experts.
The First Folio: Folger Shakespeare Library
The Folger Shakespeare Library has 82 copies of the First Folio, all of which were collected by the library’s founders, Henry and Emily Folger. Learn more about our First Folios, how they were acquired, and how they still provide inspiration and lead to new discoveries.
The Bodleian First Folio
Welcome to the digital facsimile of the Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, Arch. G c.7. This has been made possible by the generous support of the donors to the Sprint for Shakespeare public campaign (August to December 2012). We are grateful to them all, and hope that you will enjoy becoming part of the story of the First Folio.

A sampling of Shakespeare related titles

Queer Shakespeare desire and sexuality by Goran Stanivukovic (Editor)
Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality draws together 13 essays, which offer a major reassessment of the criticism of desire, body and sexuality in Shakespeare's drama and poetry. Bringing together some of the most prominent critics working at the intersection of Shakespeare criticism and queer theory, this collection demonstrates the vibrancy of queer Shakespeare studies.
Shakespeare in the Theatre: Mark Rylance at the Globe by Stephen Purcell; Bridget Escolme (Contribution by); Farah Karim-Cooper (Contribution by); Peter Holland (Contribution by)
This book explores the theatre 's first decade of productions under the pioneering leadership of Sir Mark Rylance. Drawing upon an extensive range of material from the theatre 's archive, interviews with Globe practitioners, and Rylance's own personal archive, this book argues that the Rylance era was a ground-breaking and important period of recent theatre history. It concludes with an in-depth interview with Rylance himself. The book gives a unique insight into Rylance 's practice and impact, and will be of interest to anyone studying Shakespeare in performance.
Early Modern Actors and Shakespeare's Theatre. Thinking with the body by Evelyn Tribble
What skills did Shakespeare's actors bring to their craft? How do these skills differ from those of contemporary actors? Early Modern Actors and Shakespeare's Theatre: Thinking with the Body examines the 'toolkit' of the early modern player and suggests new readings of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries through the lens of their many skills.
Shakespeare's theatres and the effects of performance by Farah Karim Cooper and Tiffany Stern
How did Elizabethan and Jacobean acting companies create their visual and aural effects? What materials were available to them and how did they influence staging and writing? What impact did the sensations of theatre have on early modern audiences? How did the construction of the playhouses contribute to technological innovations in the theatre? What effect might these innovations have had on the writing of plays? Shakespeare's Theatres and The Effects of Performance is a landmark collection of essays by leading international scholars addressing these and other questions to create a unique and comprehensive overview of the practicalities and realities of the theatre in the early modern period.
Renaissance Psychologies by Robert Lanier Reid; J. B. Lethbridge
A thorough and scholarly study of Spenser and Shakespeare and their contrary artistry, covering themes of theology, psychology, the depictions of passion and intellect, moral counsel, family hierarchy, self-love, temptation, folly, allegory, female heroism, the supernatural and much more. Renaissance psychologies examines the distinct and polarised emphasis of these two towering intellects and writers of the early modern period.
Will to believe: Shakespeare and religion by David Scott Kastan
A Will to Believe offers a thoughtful, surprising, and often moving consideration of how religion actually functions in them: not as keys to Shakespeare's own faith but as remarkably sensitive registers of the various ways in which religion charged the world in which he lived. The book shows what we know and can't know about Shakespeare's own beliefs, and demonstrates, in a series of wonderfully alert and agile readings, how the often fraught and vertiginous religious environment of Post-Reformation England gets refracted by the lens of Shakespeare's imagination.