The Shakespeare Folios - Twelfth Night - Twelfe Night or What You Will

The First Folio of 1623 is the definitive edition of Shakespeare's plays. It is the closest we can now get to what Shakespeare actually wrote

But the Folio's antiquated typography and cramped layout make it remote and inaccessible to modern eyes. And the trouble with modern editions 'based on' the Folio is that, necessarily, editors have intervened between us and the original text, providing their own interpolations and improvements

This brand new series of Shakespeare Folios on the other hand offers easy access directly to the First Folio by presenting the text in modern type but otherwise unchanged

All the Folio's idiosyncrasies, odd spellings, even obvious errors, are left intact, but the text is suddenly as readable as today's newspaper

As an additional aid to understanding, readers will find, opposite each page of Folio, the exact same passage given in a modern edition. So, wherever the Folio is problematic, the reader can refer to this parallel text for a solution, either in the text itself or in the notes at the end of the book. These notes draw both on the Quartos where they exist, and on the long tradition of Shakespearean scholarship

Using these two versions of the play - one thoroughly authentic, the other carefully modernised - readers, be they students or scholars, actors or directors, theatre goers or Shakespeare buffs, can achieve an unprecedented understanding of one of the most significant works in the history of literature