Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and a Fellow of

Hertford College Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The colle ...

. She has published and lectured widely on

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and on other early modern dramatists, and worked with numerous theatre companies. Her lectures are available as podcasts ''Not Shakespeare: Elizabethan and Jacobean Popular Theatre'' and ''Approaching Shakespeare''.

Life and career

Smith was educated at Abbey Grange school in Leeds and did her undergraduate degree at Somerville College, Oxford, from 1988 to 1991. She was a Prize Fellow at

All Souls College Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

. As part of her work on Shakespeare’s

First Folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...

, Smith worked with conservators, digital specialists and crowd-sourced funding on a Bodleian Library project to digitise a copy of the book. In 2016, she authenticated a new copy of Shakespeare's

found at Mount Stuart House on the

Isle of Bute The Isle of Bute ( sco, Buit; gd, Eilean Bhòid or '), known as Bute (), is an island in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, United Kingdom. It is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault. Formerly a constituent is ...

. With Laurie Maguire of Oxford University she published a new argument in 2012 that Shakespeare's play '' All's Well that Ends Well'' was a collaboration with

Thomas Middleton Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jac ...

. ''The New Oxford Shakespeare'' edition of 2016, edited by Bourus ''et al,'' was the first printed edition of the play to accept this joint attribution. Another article with Laurie Maguire won the 2014 Hoffman Prize. She was a script advisor to Josie Rourke’s 2018 film '' Mary Queen of Scots.'' She edits the Cambridge University Press journal ''Shakespeare Survey''. Smith published ''This Is Shakespeare'' in 2019. The book was published as a guide to Shakespeare's plays. It extends from her lectures for Oxford undergraduates, which were also used as the basis for her ''Approaching Shakespeare'' podcast, where she discusses 20 of Shakespeare's plays in chronological order. She says she wanted the book "to give a sense of Shakespeare’s range across his career" but also "to keep the individual chapters self-contained, so that you could read one before going to the theatre."

Bibliography

Selected publications

*''This Is Shakespeare'' (Pelican, 2019) *''Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book'', (Oxford University Press, 2016) *''The Making of Shakespeare's First Folio'', (Bodleian Publishing, 2015) *''The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England''. Eds. Andy Kesson and Emma Smith (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013) *''Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio's Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger's Tragedy'' (Penguin UK, 2012) *''The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012) *''The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare'' (Cambridge University Press, 2007) *''Shakespeare's Comedies: a Guide to Criticism'' (Blackwell Guides to Criticism, 2003) *''Shakespeare's Histories: a Guide to Criticism'' (Blackwell Guides to Criticism, 2003) *''Shakespeare's Tragedies: a Guide to Criticism'' (Blackwell Guides to Criticism, 2003) *''Shakespeare in Production: Henry V'' (2000) *''

Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of ''The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, ...

: The Spanish Tragedie'' (ed. 1998) *''Women on the Early Modern Stage: A Woman Killed with Kindness, The Tamer Tamed, The Duchess of Malfi, The Witch of Edmonton'' (2014) *''Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers'' (Penguin, 2022)

References

External links

Emma Smith's website

Bodleian Library's First Folio

Hertford College, Oxford

Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Literature Compass

Oxford podcasts

Approaching ShakespeareNot Shakespeare: Elizabethan and Jacobean Popular Theatre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Emma J. Fellows of Hertford College, Oxford Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Living people Shakespearean scholars Year of birth missing (living people)