Are there many versions of Macbeth?

Answer 1

Yes, there are three versions of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The First one is called the First Quarto, which appeared in 1603. It is thought to have been based on the recollections of an actor and differs considerably from the others in many places. It is also much shorter. The second Quarto came out the following year and is much more fully written. The First Folio of 1623 contained yet another version very similar to the Second hand Quarto but in some ways significantly different. Your printed version might be a quarto version or a folio version or what is called a conflation which contains as much text as possible from both versions.

Of course, the play has been adapted countless times both for stage and for film, sometimes to such an extent that it is barely recognizable. In Asta Nielsen's 1923 film Hamlet is a woman disguised as a man, pining for Horatio and fending off Ophelia, and calling on her old school chum Fortinbras for help. Each one of these might be counted as a "version" of the play.

Shakespeare was not the only person who wrote a play on the subject. There is a German play called Der Brudermord which may be a translation of an earlier English play. It has long been suspected that Thomas Kyd wrote a Hamlet play which may have been the basis of Shakespeare's.

Answer 2

Since the First Folio of Shakespeare was published in 1623, people have constantly been editing it, trying to change the spelling, fixing errors, and in some cases (Hamlet and King Lear particularly) reconciling the Folio version with Quarto versions which are quite different. Over thirty-five different editions of the Complete Works have been published over the years. The most popular nowadays are the New Cambridge, the Arden, the Riverside and the Oxford.

Answer 3

There are a few.