Much ado about Shakespeare texts online

Tudor playwright and goatee-chinned Warwickshire wordsmith Will Shakespeare has been paid a posthumous compliment of sorts this week, with the British Library announcing that it has made available 21 of his best-loved works on the internet.

High-resolution images of 21 original texts, in 93 different versions, are available on the British Library website.

There you will be able to read the plays in the same format as Shakespeare himself and the actors who performed his plays for the Globe audiences would have done, leafing through virtual page after virtual page.

Unlike many commonly read texts, the quarto editions digitised by the British Library were compiled during Shakespeare's life. They are as close to the 'real deal' as many fans of the Bard will ever have seen and the British Library will no doubt be applauded for the immense project which brings such classic works to the world at large.

The site will primarily appeal to academics; they will be able to compare and contrast different versions of the texts which are thought to be Shakespeare's drafts and rough copies of plays such as Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and Othello to name but three of the works included in the project.