Book excerpt: This much-anticipated Norton Critical Edition of Shakespeare’s best-known play is based on the Second Quarto, widely agreed to be the most authoritative early text. By carefully selecting extracts from sources, scholars, and scriptwriters, Gordon McMullan tells a series of stories about Romeo and Juliet, globally and from their legend's origins to the present day. The Norton Critical Edition includes: · Introductory materials and explanatory annotations by Gordon McMullan as well as numerous images. · Sources and early rewritings by Luigi Da Porto, Matteo Bandello, Pierre Boaistuau, Kareen Seidler, and Thomas Otway, among others. · Critical readings and later rewritings spanning four centuries and including those by Stanley Wells, Wendy Wall, Dympna C. Callaghan, Jill L. Levenson, Nia?h Cusack, David Tennant, and Courtney Lehmann. · A Selected Bibliography.