The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. King Edward III is a major addition to the Shakespearean canon, and is published here for the first time in an authoritative edition of Shakespeare's works. Its editor, Giorgio Melchiori, claims that Shakespeare is not the play's sole author but that he wrote a significant part of the text. The extent of his contribution is discussed in detail. Melchiori also explores the play's historical background and genesis both in the context of contemporary theatrical practice and in relation to Shakespeare's own early cycle of history plays. An extensive Appendix on the use of sources explains the stages in which King Edward III was composed.

‘Here in the elegant format emblematic of this collected edition … is a play entitled King Edward III … Giorgio Melchiori’s introduction to the New Cambridge Edward III, together with the actual editorial presentation and appendix on the play's sources are models of learned scruple. What this superb edition compels us to keep asking is simply this: ‘how did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?’ Neither the history of literature nor of language provides a richer ground for wonder.’

George Steiner Source: The Observer

‘Anyone who reads through Edward III with an open mind will, I believe, accept that the Shakespeare canon is permanently enlarged. It is an exhilarating experience.’

Source: Contemporary Review