For the last year and a half, the PlayShakespeare.com team has been working on the next edition of our plays and poem texts. Our approach has been to revisit the editions on this website (version 2.0) and take a fresh look at them in light of recent scholarship. The texts are also used in the Shakespeare app and Shakespeare Pro app so we've received a lot of feedback from users all over the world, including lively discussions in our forum. All of this input was incorporated into our discussions. There were a number of large tasks and one of the largest was to uniquely identify each character in the complete works in order to make them easier to understand. That way, every messenger and servant or other minor character has their own name.
Today, for Shakespeare's 448th birthday, we are happy to announce that version 3.0 of the PlayShakespeare.com editions are now live on the website. These texts represent a huge effort to create the best free versions of the works of William Shakespeare available anywhere. They have also been add to the Shakespeare Pro app, which should be live shortly on the Apple App Store.
Also, these editions are in XML format and those have been added to our document library (the previous XML versions have been removed). The XML format allows for a lot for more information to be added to the files like indentation for shared lines, stage direction types, and line types.
The GFDL license still remains for these texts. That means you can use and modify them as you see fit. You can freely use them in performance as well. The only requirement is that you give us credit. Also, drop us an email if you use them. We'd love to hear from you. We'd also like to hear any feedback about the editions so post your ideas in the forum.
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