News

NVS Seminar: Prof. Eric Rasmussen, 18 November 2025

Our next NVS Seminar will be given by Prof. Eric Rasmussen under the title 'The Fifth Folio: Shakespeare Without Rules' on 18 November 2025 at 1pm (Central Time). The talk will take place in LAAH 453 at Texas A&M University and will also be streamed live online.

Prof. Rasmussen is one of the two General Editors of the NVS and one of the editors of the NVS 'Hamlet'. He is Foundation Professor Emeritus of the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also served as Chair of the English Department. Prof. Rasmussen is one of the world's leading experts on the First Folio and his work to authenticate copies has led to him being described as "the Robert Langdon of the Shakespeare world" by 'The Washington Post'. He is the author of 'The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folio' (2011) and he is the co-editor of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 'Complete Works', of the definitive catalogue of Shakespeare First Folios, and of 'The Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama' (2002). His editorial work extends to editions for Oxford World's Classics, the Arden Shakespeare, the Revels Plays, and the Malone Society. Both his research and his teaching have received numerous distinguished awards.

We look forward to welcoming Prof. Rasmussen back to Texas A&M.

Remote attendees can join the NVS Seminar via the following link: https://tamu.zoom.us/j/96264845079?pwd=pslBKyslyulAGaDQ5E9DgaUxubsGy3.1 (if passcode is needed: 222460).

NVS at Shakespeare Society of Japan conference

The New Variorum Shakespeare hosted a tea reception at the Shakespeare Society of Japan's annual conference in Tokyo on Sunday 12 October. Our Director Dr. Robert Stagg was present to talk to SSJ delegates about how the NVS can be used in their teaching and scholarship, and the newly digital format of the variorum was warmly received by all. Thanks are due to the Texas A&M English Department for funding the reception, which further enhances the NVS's global reach.

More information about the Shakespeare Society of Japan can be found on their website, here: https://en.s-sj.org/page/about

NVS cover story in Texas A&M English Department newsletter

The New Variorum Shakespeare is thrilled to be the cover story of this month's instalment of 'The English Aggie', the Texas A&M English Department's newsletter which is written and designed by undergraduate students. The newsletter features more details about the history, present, and future of the NVS, profiles of its staff, and information about how undergraduate students can get involved in the project. A copy of the newsletter can be found here: https://artsci.tamu.edu/english/academics/undergraduate/opportunities/revised-2-september-edition-of-english-aggie-2.pdf#September 2025

Our thanks to Maia Kumar for featuring us in this issue.

In Memoriam: Prof. Jay Halio and Prof. Susan May

The New Variorum Shakespeare is sad to report the recent deaths of two of its editors, Prof. Jay Halio (1928-2025) and Prof. Susan May (1935-2025).

Prof. Jay Halio was Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware and editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare All's Well That Ends Well. His other editorial labor included old-spelling editions of King Lear and Macbeth as well as of Ben Jonson's Volpone, an edition of the first quarto of King Lear and several Shakespeare single-volume editions for Oxford University Press. His monographs include Understanding Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (1988) and Shakespeare In Performance: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1994).

Our General Editor Prof. Paul Werstine writes: "Jay Halio worked for several decades toward a New Variorum edition of All's Well That Ends Well. He collated nearly seventy major editions of the play from the last four centuries and recorded their variants in textual notes. His work on criticism of the play was particularly valuable. And he was able to attract to the edition John Quintus, who provided the section on the play's characters to Jay's extensive appendix on the criticism." The NVS All's Well That Ends Well is approaching completion under the editorship of Mark Netzloff, Lois Potter, and the aforementioned John Quintus (all of whom have been closely associated with Prof. Halio and the University of Delaware).

Prof. Susan May was Professor Emeritus at Longwood College. Over the course of fifty years, and inspired by her University of Pennsylvania doctoral thesis on 'A History of the Criticism of A Midsummer Night's Dream', she compiled the appendix on criticism of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the New Variorum Shakespeare edition of that play, which was published online in recent years. We are heartened that Prof. May lived to see her life's work published, and we will be celebrating the publication with a major international conference at Texas A&M University next year. An article about Prof. May's lifelong work on the Variorum can be found here: https://www.longwood.edu/news/2024/a-twice-told-tale/

Our General Editor Prof. Paul Werstine writes: "Susan May showed truly remarkable dedication to the New Variorum Shakespeare edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream. For her entire scholarly and professional career she laboured to compile the exhaustive appendix on criticism now published on the NVS site. Once her work had been put up, she also tirelessly checked it for accuracy."

We mourn the deaths of Prof. Halio and Prof. May and recognise their extraordinary service to the New Variorum Shakespeare. Our editions of All's Well That Ends Well and A Midsummer Night's Dream will stand as testament to their scholarly work for many decades to come.

NVS Seminar: Dr. Whitney Sperrazza book launch, 11 September 2025

The NVS is delighted to be co-hosting a book launch for Dr. Whitney Sperrazza's Anatomical Forms: The Science of the Body in Early Modern Women's Poetry (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). Dr. Sperrazza is Assistant Professor of English at Texas A&M and will be in conversation with two other English Department colleagues, Dr. Kevin O'Sullivan and Dr. Katie Adkison. 

This NVS Seminar will take place at 12:30 Central Time in LAAH 453 at Texas A&M University and will also be streamed live on Zoom using the link below:

https://tamu.zoom.us/j/93140643094?pwd=KxSIiDb3SddO1982qiD2e6yxJMPpzb.1

(Zoom passcode, if needed: 895771)

We very much hope to see you there. Please direct any questions about the event to rstagg@tamu.edu

New Variorum Shakespeare announces event schedule for Fall Semester 2025

The New Variorum Shakespeare has announced its schedule of events for the forthcoming Fall Semester.

Our program begins in September with a book launch of Dr. Whitney Sperrazza's Anatomical Forms: The Science of the Body in Early Modern Women's Poetry (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). Dr. Sperrazza is an Assistant Professor of English at Texas A&M. For this in-person event, which will also be streamed live on Zoom, Dr. Sperrazza will be in conversation with two other Texas A&M English Department colleagues, Dr. Kevin O'Sullivan and Dr. Katie Adkison. A catered reception will follow.

In October the NVS will be hosting a tea reception at the Shakespeare Society of Japan conference in Tokyo. Our Director Dr. Robert Stagg, who will also be giving a plenary lecture at the conference, will talk to delegates about the New Variorum Shakespeare and how it might be incorporated into their research and teaching.

In November our NVS Seminars resume with a talk by one of our General Editors, Prof. Eric Rasmussen (Foundation Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno). Prof. Rasmussen is one of the world's leading Shakespeareans: as well as being a widely-published expert on the Shakespeare First Folio, he is the co-editor of the RSC's Complete Works of William Shakespeare and The Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama. This in-person event will also be streamed live on Zoom.

Our term card concludes in December with an exhibition at Texas A&M's Cushing Library about 'Shakespeare and his Europe', which will situate the library's nationally significant collection of Shakespearan texts alongside early modern European books (including its world-class collection of Cervantes and early modern Spanish drama). Faculty members and graduate students at Texas A&M will be treated to a 'private view' of the exhibition followed by a drinks reception in celebration of the NVS and the end of the Fall Semester.

More details of dates, times, etc, will be forthcoming. We hope to see you at many events in our Fall program.

NVS TEI to be preserved by Texas A&M University

Thanks to the efforts of our NVS Board Member and Texas A&M professor Laura Mandell, the TEI for the New Variorum Shakespeare will now be preserved by the Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences. This arrangement will enable 10TB of permanent, open-access data storage to be used for the NVS, alongside other digital humanities projects, preserving the work of our editors in a form that will be available to all users regardless of any software or databases that might become obsolete. We are grateful to Prof. Mandell and the College of Arts and Sciences for ensuring that the NVS will remain legible and usable for decades to come.