Overview
This book is at once an edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets and a guide to
how to read these exquisite and complex poems. It is designed both for
readers new to the poems and for those who are familiar with the Sonnets
but are ready to engage with them afresh. It is the only current
edition which provides an original-spelling text of the poems: that is,
it prints the poems as they appeared in the first edition, Shake-speares
Sonnets (1609), preserving the spelling, punctuation, italics, and
capitalization of the original, with only minor interventions where that
edition manifestly needs correction. The advantages (and occasional
hazards) of reading an original-spelling text are explained, and
detailed help is provided in order to assist readers who may be
unfamiliar with the conventions of early-modern spelling and
punctuation.