Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

Hamlet is Shakespeare's famous tragedy of a prince sworn to avenge his father's death.

This work's page has more information about this work, including links to books on related topics and online books about this work.

Bibliographic Notes

As with Shakespeare's other plays, there is no "original" manuscript or author-supervised publication of Hamlet. Five quarto editions were published by others between 1603 and 1637, and the play was also included in the First Folio of 1623, published seven years after Shakespeare's death. Texts from these and other sources were used to create subsequent editions of the play.

Online Editions and Versions

Critical and scholars' editions

• Hamlet (multiple editions and commentary), by William Shakespeare (searchable HTML at hamletworks.org)

Student editions

• Hamlet (with annotations and scene index), by William Shakespeare, ed. by Philip Weller (HTML at shakespeare-navigators.com)

Early source editions

• The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (first quarto, 1603), by William Shakespeare
  • page images at British Library
  • Gutenberg text
• The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (second quarto, 1604, reprinted 1605), by William Shakespeare (page images at uvic.ca)
• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (third quarto, 1611), by William Shakespeare (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (from the first folio, 1623), by William Shakespeare (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)

Historic staged versions

• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, As It is Now Acted at His Highness the Duke of York's Theatre (London: Printed by A. Clark for J. Martyn et al., 1676), by William Shakespeare (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• Hamlet: No. 1 of the Edwin Forrest Edition of Shakspearian and Other Plays (1860; with handwritten actor's prompts), by William Shakespeare (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• Hamlet: A Tragedy in Five Acts (as arranged for the stage by Henry Irving, 1879), by William Shakespeare, contrib. by Henry Irving (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet, As Presented by Edwin Booth (promptbook edition, 1879; with handwritten actor's prompts), by William Shakespeare, ed. by William Winter, contrib. by Edwin Booth (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• Hamlet (as arranged for the stage and presented at the Lyceum Theatre; 1897), by William Shakespeare, contrib. by Johnston Forbes-Robertson, illust. by Henry Hawes Craven (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)

Other editions and versions

• The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare (HTML at MIT)
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bathurst edition, 1773), by William Shakespeare (frame- and cookie-dependent page images here at Penn)
• Hamlet (French 19th-century adaptation, translated back into English), by William Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas, and Paul Meurice, trans. by Frank J. Morlock (HTML at cadytech.com)
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (London: Oxford University Press, 1914), by William Shakespeare, ed. by W. J. Craig (HTML at Bartleby)
• The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: A Study With the Text of the Folio of 1623, by William Shakespeare, ed. by George MacDonald (Gutenberg text)

Related Titles

• Shakespeare in Quarto, by William Shakespeare (page images at the British Library). Includes several source editions of Hamlet that can be compared side by side.

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