Everything old is new again. Rarely has there been as much excitement surrounding Shakespeare as the attention focused last year on the official opening of the London Globe Theatre by Queen Elizabeth II.
If there has ever been a groundbreaking edition that likewise returns the reader to the original Shakespeare text, it will be in the Applause Folio Texts. 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 reexamine 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 advise the reader on variations between Folios and Quartos.
The heavy mascara of four centuries of Shakespeare glossing is stripped away, revealing 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 studies or performances. The Folios begin to make Shakespeare our contemporary.