Did you study English? Do you like Shakespeare? Gift ideas for University.

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My son has got a place to do English at University. We (DH and I, and grandparents on both sides) want to get him a gift to send him off with. A family friend suggested a set of second hand Shakespeare books. I have found various sets for about £100.

I’m a medical engineer so this is all very alien to me.

I’m a bit amazed that a set of books can be so much when you can just buy a set of new paperbacks on Amazon for a fraction of the price. I also thought Shakespeare was something you just endured at school 😁.

Would these even be of use to him? Are they likely to collect dust and be taken back to a charity shop in a few years? He does say he likes Shakespeare.

Textual scholarship is a huge thing with older texts. Shakespeare's plays existed in many forms- what he initially wrote, then actors' scripts etc, then being gathered into quartos and then into folios after his death- all the way through they are being revised, amended, incorrectly copied etc. If you look at early versions of the plays they can be wildly different. So anyone editing Shakespeare needs to make decisions about these differences- which ones represent what Shakespeare wrote, which are deliberate revisions (maybe by Shakespeare, maybe by someone else), which are just printers' errors etc etc, and will argue for their choices.

In practice that means that the edition you use matters, there are some editions that are rated more highly than others and as pp says there may be a particular edition that he needs to use at his university.

There's currently some lovely hardback editions of classics (including Wuthering Heights) in TK Maxx.

My dad, in his 80s discovered a liking for linguistics, I bought him some books by David Crystal. One was in collaboration with his son who us, think, a stage director.

The collaboration was to produce Shakespeare with the original accent. I can't remember the exact title but it would make a nice present and you could add some money.

Or depending where you are a trip to Oxford for book shopping.

Because introductions, notes, and 'further reading' lists, which you'll get in a Penguin or OUP edition, are regularly revised and new scholars are invited to edit and introduce the text. So like a 1966 edition of Macbeth will be prefaced with a different tone and content to one now - and will obviously not be able to sketch out the intervening 60 years of scholarship, which can be very useful - or might not be aware of some biographical details which have come to light since, in some instances.

Although the books sound like a lovely idea he might appreciate theatre tokens - they can be used in a variety of places and don’t have an expiry date.

If he’s studying Shakespeare there will almost certainly be a specific edition used.

How much live theatre does he see? And which city is he most likely to frequent? I would have said a Student or Under 30 membership for his preferred theatre (National / RSC / whatever) might be welcome.

I'd get him Peter Barry's Beginning Theory, or something like that. Any literature student will benefit from a gentle and accessible introduction to literary theory. They think they know it already because they've 'applied a feministical lens to the book' at school, but having a grasp on more complex ideas will really help.

Thank you. This is very interesting (and helpful).

Thank you! I will take a look.

Thanks, this sounds like something that would interest him.

This makes a lot of sense, I can see this. Thank you.

This is a great idea. I will look into this now.

This sounds like him (not just English, he knows everything) 😋.
I like the idea of something like this.

I think a Folio Society Wuthering Heights will be a lovely momento of this time in his life and of that teacher who encouraged his love of reading. And then I’d top up the difference with a Waterstones voucher for him to choose his own books with free rein!

You (or rather your son) are about to get very surprised about how much books can cost (fellow mum of English Lit student)! (and DD buys most of hers second hand)

I would not get an expensive set of Shakespeare unless he really really loved them and would treasure them for ever. If Wuthering Heights is his favourite book, I would echo PP and get him one of the gorgeous hardback versions as a keepsake.

It's not such a special present but I'd recommend the "Mayhem in the Library" jigsaw (if he likes jigsaws). It's a jigsaw featuring clues to 100 well known books. Good bonding activity with fellow students too.

I would get them a book tokens voucher :)

Might be irrelevant for someone studying English literature but I used to go to the theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and the number of teenagers who would arrive at the theatre disgruntled and moaning about having to watch a boring Shakespeare play. The difference when they left saying how brilliant it was was striking. Maybe theatre tickets?

Bob Eaglestone's "doing english" is also a really good primer for degree level (I make a number of copies available for my A Level students). He will also, I imagine, at some point need the Norton Anthology of Critical Theory which is a bit of a beast of a book!

Yes that would be cool. I did English at university and postgrad. It’s a good gift. Though I’d prefer an Austen personally.

If you get a Kindle a lot of the classics are free.

Yes, although they often lack page numbers so you'd have to go and locate an actual copy if you wanted to write about them in an essay - and generally none of the notes or endnotes and so on.

One of mine studied English and would definitely have appreciated book tokens but not actual books (wanted to choose them herself). I’d also steer away from theatre tokens which can be a pain to use whereas he’ll definitely buy books and use book tokens.

Not very good for annotating or following along if you need a certain edition.

And a lot of DD's reading list isn't "classics".

has he had a reading list yet? We were told to get a specific edition of all the collected shakespeare plays so then the lecturer can refer to an exact page etc. I got an earlier edition of the same book for £2 in a boot sale rather than £40 on the newest edition and even that was a little bit out and a slight faff in finding the right quotes so I imagine a set of individual books would be even more annoying. Also agree with the pp who said they'll be a pain to cart back and forth to different accommodation every year.

I'd just give cash and maybe something small as a nod towards the literature element - you can get magnets of funny shakespeare insults or a skull paperweight etc. Lots of ideas at RSC Shop – The RSC shop or Books, Gifts & Wall Art Prints | British Library Shop.

Your friend is a bit weird. Firstly because what student wouldn't appreciate cold hard cash, and secondly because it's perfectly possible to do a whole literature degree without ever doing any shakespeare. If he decided to concentrate on gothic or modern it would be a very random gift.

I would not have appreciated this gift when I was an Eng Lit student (and still wouldn't now to be fair!). I chose my modules to study as much modern literature as possible. I don't think I studied Shakespeare at all in my entire uni career!