Excerpt from The Life and Death of King Richard II

It is intended to publish from time to time the plays of Shakespeare as performed in the Memorial Theatre. For the convenience of the frequenters of the theatre, these plays will present the stage arrangement, and yet give the original text in its entirety, so that they may be useful to families and circles where the delightful practice of reading aloud occupies a part of the winter evenings.

The manners and taste of the present age will not permit of the use of certain words and expressions that were of common occurrence three hundred years ago, and the Editor has endeavoured, without altering the meaning of the Poet, to omit or soften such expressions. He has not aimed at bringing out a "Shakespeare" for children, but rather to present such an edition as can be read aloud in general society. It must be noted that Shakespeare was emphatically a pure writer. Nothing of the improprieties which came into vogue a generation later ever sullied his pen. In no single instance is virtue or modesty held up to ridicule, or vice shown in any other light than its own deformity. His language is simply the language common to the age in which he lived. It is sought in this edition to make only such changes as will adapt it to our own times.

The Editor has frequently noticed among a Theatrical audience some engaged with volumes of an ordinary edition of Shakespeare endeavouring, often vainly, to follow the text during the progress of the play.

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