Cymbeline: The New Oxford Shakespeare

'I see a man's life is a tedious one.'

Set in Ancient Britain, Cymbeline is a play of deceit, disguise, banishment, and fidelity against the backdrop of a Roman invasion. When the King of Britain Cymbeline discovers his daughter's secret marriage, he banishes her husband to Rome, who then accuses Innogen of being unfaithful. Innogen must evade deadly plots and homicidal jealousy to restore her name. Long recognised as a response to James VI and I's project to unite England and Scotland, the play conjures ancient British history at a moment when that history was eroding, revealed as a medieval invention. This sense of historical endings is entangled with Cymbeline as a late play, and its numerous apparent callbacks across Shakespeare's career.

The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare's works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare's work.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Author: William Shakespeare, Kim Gilchrist, Rory Loughnane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 05/13/2025
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.36lbs
Size: 7.75h x 5.15w x 0.50d
ISBN13: 9780192882868
ISBN10: 0192882864
BISAC Categories:
- Drama | Shakespeare
- Literary Criticism | Renaissance

About the Author
William Shakespeare

Kim Gilchrist is Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University. He holds a Ph.D from Roehampton University (2018). Kim was co-organiser with Dr Amy Lidster of the 2019 'Changing Histories' conference at King's College London. He has been an invited speaker at the universities of Oxford, Southampton, and Würzberg, the Malone Society, and the Rose Playhouse. Kim's work explores popular culture, interactions between history and romance, and modes of performance beyond London's professional drama. He has published articles on Mucedorus and King Lear, and a monograph on the performance of Britain's imagined pre-Roman history. He is currently writing a monograph on Mucedorus.

Rory Loughnane is Reader in Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author or editor of ten books and has published widely on Shakespeare. For the New Oxford Shakespeare, he has edited more than ten of Shakespeare's plays. He is a Series Editor of Studies in Early Modern Authorship (Routledge) and Shakespeare and Text (Cambridge UP), and a General Editor of The Revels Plays series (Manchester UP) and the forthcoming Oxford Marlowe edition.