Gary Taylor

Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor
Krafft Professor
Distinguished Research Professor

Gary Taylor

Contact Information

gtaylor@fsu.edu
WMS 405

About

GARY TAYLOR, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, Ph.D., Cambridge, is General Editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare, including Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition (2016), Complete Works: Critical Reference Edition (2017), Authorship Companion (2017), and New Oxford Shakespeare Online (2017), which combines and expands on all the print versions. He was also general editor of the Collected Works of "our other Shakespeare," Thomas Middleton (Oxford, 2008), which won the Modern Language Association's biennial prize for a Distinguished Scholarly edition and the Emily Dietz award for outstanding publication in early modern studies; he also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton (2012), the largest collection of new critical essays on Middleton ever published. The "Middleton Trilogy" is now available in paperback. His most recent book, co-authored with John Nance (an FSU English Ph.D.), is Textual Genealogies and Shakespeare's History Plays (Cambridge University Press, 2026). He general-edited two series published by Palgrave, "Signs of Race" and "History of Text Technologies". He founded the interdisciplinary History of Text Technologies program at FSU and has written about the practice and theory of editing in various periods and genres; in 2006 he gave the McKenzie lectures at Oxford University on Edward Blount, the chief publisher of the 1623 Shakespeare folio. Taylor's Moment by Moment by Shakespeare (MacMillan, 1985) was the winner of a Choice Award for "Outstanding Academic Book." His other books include a history of Shakespeare's reputation (Reinventing Shakespeare, 1989: "the most ambitious book on Shakespeare ever written", according to a review in Shakespeare Quarterly), a theory of artistic reputations generally (Cultural Selection, 1996: "brilliant insights and beautifully reasoned prose… an original and striking analysis of culture", according to the New York Times Book Review), and "an abbreviated history of Western manhood" (Castration, 2000: "terrific reading," according to Salon.com). He co-edited the first collection of essays on Shakespeare and Fletcher's partially-lost play The History of Cardenio (Oxford, 2012), based on Don Quixote, and the same year his "creative reconstruction" of Cardenio was performed in Indianapolis, where it was also the subject of an international scholarly colloquium, a PBS documentary, and another collection of scholarly essays (Palgrave, 2013). His restoration has now been translated into Portuguese and into Spanish; a production of the Spanish translation premiered in Valladolid, Spain, in 2026. Taylor has also worked to communicate contemporary literary theory and criticism to a mass audience (newspapers, radio, TV, museums and theatres in North America and UK, including three Platforms at the Royal National Theatre, London). He was widely interviewed in 2016 in connection with the New Oxford Shakespeare's identification of Christopher Marlowe as Shakespeare's collaborator on the three Henry VI plays. Taylor is currently working on the New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Alternative Versions, to be published in print and online by Oxford University Press.

Ph.D., Cambridge
Literature, Media, and Culture
History of Text Technologies

Shakespeare, early modern drama, history of text technologies, history of the book, digital humanities, editorial theory and practice

Books

  • Textual Genealogies and Shakespeare's History Plays, Gary Taylor and John V. Nance. Cambridge UP, 2026.
  • The New Oxford Shakespeare, Complete Works: Critical Reference Edition, gen. ed. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, Gabriel Egan. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  • The New Oxford Shakespeare, Authorship Companion, edited by Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan. Oxford UP, 2017.
  • The New Oxford Shakespeare, Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, gen. ed. Gary Taylor, John Jowett, Terri Bourus, Gabriel Egan. Oxford UP, 2016.
  • Buying Whiteness: Race, Culture, and Identity from Columbus to Hip Hop. Palgrave, 2005.
  • The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Second Edition. Oxford UP, 2005.
  • Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood. New York and London: Routledge, 2000.
  • Cultural Selection. New York: Basic Books, 1996; rpt., paperback ed., 1997.
  • Shakespeare Reshaped 1606-1623. With John Jowett. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993; rpt. 1997.
  • Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present. New York & London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1989; rpt., paperback ed., Oxford UP, 1991.
  • William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. With Stanley Wells, John Jowett and William Montgomery. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987; rpt., paperback ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
  • Moment by Moment by Shakespeare. London and New York: MacMillan, 1985. Published in the United States as To Analyze Delight.
  • Modernizing Shakespeare's Spelling with Three Studies in the Text of Henry V. With Stanley Wells. New York & London: Oxford UP, 1979.

Books Edited

  • The Creation and Re-Creation of Cardenio: Performing Shakespeare, Transforming Cervantes, edited by Terri Bourus and Gary Taylor. Palgrave, 2013.
  • The Quest for Cardenio: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Fletcher, and the Lost Play, edited by  David Carnegie and Gary Taylor. Oxford UP, 2012.
  • The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton, edited by Gary Taylor and Trish Thomas Henley. Oxford UP, 2012.
  • The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton. Oxford UP, 2007.
  • Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture: A Companion to The Collected Works. Oxford UP, 2007.
  • John Fletcher, The Tamer Tamed, Revels Plays, 2006, co-edited with Celia R. Daileader.
  • The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Text. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
  • Macbeth. Edited and annotated for CD-ROM edition, with Jim Bride. New York: Bride Media, 1997.
  • Romeo and Juliet. Edited and annotated for CD-ROM edition, with Jim Bride and Celia Daileader. New York: Columbia UP, 1997.
  • Shakespeare's Editors from Rowe to Alexander, with Stanley Wells. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1988.
  • The Complete Works, William Shakespeare, gen. ed. with Stanley Wells. New York & London: Oxford UP, 1986. Rpt. on Compact Disc. Oxford UP, 1989; Rpt. in paperback, Oxford UP, 1994; rpt. in three-volume paperback, Oxford UP, 1994.
  • The Complete Works: Original Spelling Edition, William Shakespeare, gen. ed. with Stanley Wells. Oxford UP, 1986.
  • The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare's Two Versions of King Lear. New York & London: Oxford UP, 1983; rpt. in paperback edition, 1986.

Articles and Essays (1995-)

  • “Shakespeare and Political History: Bastards, Nepobabies, Oligarchs.” Shakespeare and Politics, edited by Charlotte Thomas. Mercer UP, 2026.
  • “The Politics of Attribution,” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Authorship, edited by Rory Loughnane and Will Sharpe. Oxford UP, 2025, pp. 848-68.
  • "Shakespeare’s Christian Nationalist History Plays.” Shakespeare Review, vol. 60, no. 4, 2024, pp. 785-809. doi: 10.17009/shakes.2024.60.4.007
  • “Transeditions: Shakespeare’s two French English lessons.” Letras, vol. 33, no. 67, 2024, pp. 3-36.
  • “One Book to Rule Them All: ‘The King James Version’ of Shakespeare’s Plays.” Shakespeare, vol. 9, no. 4, 2024, pp. 75-103. doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2023.2251940
  • “Oxford University Press and Digital Shakespeare, 1960s to 2020s.” Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 8. Hangzhou: Zhejiang UP, 2023, pp. 85-103.
  • “The Changeling: Middleton, Rowley, Eliot, and the Sin of Synecdoche.” I400 Anos de The Changeling (Thomas Middleton y William Rowley, 1622), edited by John D. Sanderson Alicante: Universitat d’Alacant, 2023, pp. 23-36.
  • "Shakespearian Magnitudes." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 73, 2022, 246-79. https://doi.org/10.1093/sq/quac058
  • "Playhouse Manuscripts, Vectors of Transmission, and Shakespeare's Henry V," PBSA vol. 116, 2022, pp. 343-78. doi.org/10.1086/721096
  • “Interface Design and Editorial Theory.” The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Interface, edited by Paul Budra and Clifford Werier. Routledge, 2022, pp. 105-15. DOI: 10.4324/9780367821722-10
  • “Shakespeare's Early Gothic Hamlet.” Shakespeare & The First Hamlet, edited by Terri Bourus. Berghahn, 2022, pp. 7-34.
  • "Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, and Four Forgotten Playwrights.” Review of English Studies, vol. 71, no. 302, 2020, pp. 867-95.  doi:10.1093/res/hgaa005
  • “Cry Havoc”, King Henry V, edited by Francois Laroque. Paris: Ellipses, 2020, pp. 221-33.
  • "Death of an English Major." The Best American Essays 2019, edited by Rebecca Solnit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.
  • "Who Read What When?" Early Shakespeare, 1588-94, edited by Rory Loughnane and Andrew Power. Cambridge UP, 2020, pp. 284-301.
  • "Finding Anonymous in the Digital Archives: The Problem of Arden of Faversham." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 4, 2019, pp. 855–73. doi: 10.1093/llc/fqy075
  • "The Tamer Tamed: Dating Shakespeare's Interactions with Fletcher." Memoria di Shakespeare, vol. 5, 2018, pp. 118-48. doi: 10.13133/2283-8759/14508
  • Gary Taylor, John V. Nance, and Keegan Cooper, "Shakespeare and Who? Aeschylus, Edward III, and Thomas Kyd." Shakespeare Survey, vol. 70, 2017, pp. 146-53.
  • “Fake Shakespeare.” Journal of Early Modern Studies, vol. 5, 2016, 353–79.
  • "Collaboration." Shakespeare 2016, edited by Dympna Callaghan and Suzanne Gossett. Bloomsbury/Shakespeare Association of America, 2016.
  • “Shakespeare’s Illegitimate Daughter.” Memoria di Shakespeare, vol. 2, 2015, pp. 177-94.
  • Gary Taylor and John Nance, "Imitation or Collaboration? Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare. Canon." Shakespeare Survey, vol. 68, 2015, pp. 32-47.
  • "The Taming of the Thing." Washington Shakespeare Theatre (D.C.), 2015.
  • "Why Did Shakespeare Collaborate?" Shakespeare Survey, vol. 67, 2014, pp. 1-17.
  • "Empirical Middleton: Macbeth, Adaptation, and Micro-authorship." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 35, 2014, pp. 239-72.
  • Terri Bourus and Gary Taylor, "Measure for Measure(s): Performance-Testing the Adaptation Hypothesis." Shakespeare, vol. 10, no. 2, 2014, pp. 363-401.
  • "Middleton and Macbeth." Macbeth: The Norton Critical Edition, edited by Robert Miola. Norton, 2014, pp. 294-303.
  • "Sleight of Mind: Cognitive Illusions and Shakespearian Desire." Performing Shakespeare, Transforming Cervantes, edited by Taylor and Bourus. Palgrave, 2013, pp. 125-68.
  • Gary Taylor and Stephen Wagschal, "Cervantes or Shelton? The Sources of Cardenio and Double Falsehood." Performing Shakespeare, Transforming Cervantes, edited by Taylor and Terri Bourus. Palgrave, 2013, pp. 15-29.
  • "History • Plays • Genre • Games." The Oxford Handbook to Thomas Middleton, edited by Taylor and Henley. Oxford UP, 2012, pp. 47-63.
  • "A History of The History of Cardenio." The Quest for Cardenio, edited by David Carnegie and Taylor. Oxford UP, 2012, pp. 11-61.
  • "The Embassy, The City, The Court, The Text: Cardenio Performed in 1613." The Quest for Cardenio, 2012, 286-307.
  • "'White Like Us': Early Modern King Kongs and Calibans." Race and Modernity, edited by Iris Wigger and Sabine Ritter. LIT-Verlag, 2011, pp. 31-53.
  • "In Media Res: From Jerome through Greg to Jerome (McGann)." Textual Cultures, vol. 4, no. 2, 2009, pp. 88-101
  • "Historicism, presentism and time: Middleton's The Spanish Gypsy and A Game at Chess." SEDERI, vol. 18, 2008, pp. 147-70.
  • "Middleton, Shakespeare and Caravaggio." The Revenger's Tragedy (program), Royal National Theatre, June 2008, rpt. as "A Mad World," Guardian, 7 June 2008.
  • "Milton and Shakespeare: Battle of the Bards." Time (Europe), 15 May 2008.
  • "The Bawdy Bard." Time (Europe), 18 November 2007.
  • "Making Meaning Marketing Shakespeare 1623." From Performance to Print in Early Modern England, edited by Peter Holland and Stephen Orgel, vol. 3 of "Redefining British Theatre History." Palgrave, 2006, pp. 55-72.
  • "Thomas Middleton, The Spanish Gypsy, and Multiple Collaboration." Words That Count: Essays on Early Modern Authorship, edited by Brian Boyd. U of Delaware P, 2004, pp. 241-73.
  • "Shakespeare's Mediterranean Measure for Measure." Shakespeare and the Mediterranean: Selected Proceedings of the International Shakespeare Association World Congress, Valencia, 2001, edited by Tom Clayton, Susan Brock, and Vicente Forés. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2004, pp. 243-69.
  • "The Cultural Politics of Maybe." Region, Religion, and Patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare, edited by Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay and Richard Wilson. Manchester UP, 2003, pp. 242-58.
  • "Middleton and Rowley-and Heywood: The Old Law and New Technologies of Attribution." Papers for the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 96, 2002, pp. 165-218.
  • "Shakespeare Plays on Renaissance Stages." The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare in the Theatre, edited by Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge UP, 2002, pp. 1-27.
  • "Power, Pathos, Character." Harold Bloom and the Interpretation of Shakespeare, edited by Christy Desmet and Robert Sawyer. New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 43-64.
  • "Thomas Middleton, The Nice Valour, and the Court of James I." Court Historian, vol. 6, 2001, pp. 1-37.
  • "Divine [ ] sences." Shakespeare Survey, vol. 54, Cambridge UP, 2001, pp. 13-30.
  • "Gender, Hunger, Horror: The History and Significance of The Bloody Banquet." Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies vol. 1, 2001, pp. 1-45.
  • "Hamlet in Africa 1607." Travel Knowledge, edited by Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna Singh. New York: St. Martin's, 2000, pp. 211-48.
  • "Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, and The Bloody Banquet." Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 94, 2000, pp. 197-233.
  • "Theatrical Proximities: The Stratford Festival, 1998." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 50, 1999, pp. 334-54.
  • "Thomas Middleton, Lording Barry and The Family of Love," co-authored with Paul Mulholland and Mac D. P. Jackson. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 93, 1999, pp. 213-42.
  • "Afterword: The Incredible Shrinking Bard." Shakespeare and Appropriation, edited by Robert Sawyer and Kristin McDermott. New York and London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 197-205.
  • "Feeling Bodies." Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century: Proceedings of the Sixth World Shakespeare Congress, edited by Jonathan Bate et al. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1998.
  • "Judgement." New Texts, Old Texts: Papers on the English Renaissance Text Society, edited by W. Speed Hill, Tempe, AZ: 1998.
  • "What Is an Author [not]?" Critical Survey, vol. 7, 1995, pp. 241-55.
  • "Shakespeare and Others: The Authorship of 1 Henry VI." Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 7, 1995, pp. 145-205.

Anthologized Work

  • "Why Did Shakespeare Collaborate?" Chosen by Peter Holland in 2018 for an online Cambridge University Press anthology as one of 18 outstanding articles from his 18 years of editing the journal.
  • “The Fortunes of Oldcastle." Rpt. in Essays about Shakespearian Criticism, vol. 120, Gale, 2009.
  • "Revising Shakespeare." Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000, edited by Russ Mcdonald, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
  • "The Fortunes of Oldcastle" and "The War in King Lear" Shakespeare Criticism 1953-2003, edited by Sarah Stanton and Stanley Wells. Cambridge UP, 2003.
  • "The Fortunes of Oldcastle" 1 Henry IV, Norton Critical Edition, 3d. ed., edited by Gordon McMullan. New York, 2003, pp. 129-49.
  • Excerpt from Reinventing Shakespeare ("Singularity"). Elizabethan Drama. edited by Laura K. Egendorf. Greenhaven Press Companion to Literary Movements and Genres, 2000, pp. 166-71.
  • Excerpt from Reinventing Shakespeare ("1709"). Reception Study, edited by James L. Machor and Philip Goldstein. Routledge, 2000.
  • Excerpt from Reinventing Shakespeare ("Present Tense"). A Shakespeare Reader: Sources and Criticism, edited by Richard Danson Brown and David Johnson, The Open University. Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2000, pp. 305-11.
  • "Textual and Sexual Criticism." Rpt. in Shakespeare and Gender, edited by Stephen Orgel and Sean Keilen. New York: Garland, 1999, pp. 305-35.
  • "Revising Shakespeare." Rpt. in Shakespeare and the Literary Tradition, edited by Stephen Orgel and Sean Keilen. New York: Garland, 1999.
  • "Inventing Shakespeare" and "Folio Copy." Rpt. in Shakespeare and the Editorial Tradition, edited by Stephen Orgel and Sean Keilen. New York: Garland, 1999, pp. 124-43, pp. 378-96.
  • "Bardicide." Rpt. in Julius Caesar: A Casebook, edited by Richard Wilson. MacMillan: 2001.
Faculty