About the Author
Carl D. Atkins has studied Shakespeare for decades. He published a variorum edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in 2007 (only the fourth variorum edition since the Sonnets were printed in 1609) and has published two articles on the Sonnets and one on Measure for Measure, all in the respected journal, Studies in Philology. He has also recently published an article in Notes & Queries on Comedy of Errors. Dr. Atkins is a physician and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He has provided a FREE analysis of the meter of The Sonnets as a companion to his new book, Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends
Excerpt from Choice Reviews, May 2008: Shakespeare’s Sonnets: with three hundred years of commentary, ed. by Carl D. Atkins. Farleigh Dickinson, 2007. “Atkins does a great service with this extremely useful edition…Atkins also offers an insightful running commentary on the metrical features of the individual poems, making this edition stand out even further from all other recent editions…This lucid, well-researched edition is the product of many years of labor and love; it will be an indispensable work for those interested in Shakespeare’s sonnets.”
Excerpt from Chronogram review of Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends, November 2021: “Shakespeare scholar Carl D. Atkins’s book…reimagines the way that readers learn about the Bard’s sonnets. Atkins treats readers as if they are part of Shakespeare’s friend group, sharing each sonnet followed by his written explanation of their meaning and possible storylines…Through Atkins’s commentary, readers see the love triangles Shakespeare intertwined into his works, how he strayed from typical gender roles of 16th-century men and women, and his use of meter to enhance his writing’s emotions.”
Other publications:
Atkins, Carl D. Shifting Heads to Solve a Crux in Comedy of Errors. Notes & Queries 2021;64 (4):400-402. abstract
Atkins, Carl D. Spiders’ Strings and Ponderous Things: Solving a Crux in Measure for Measure. Studies in Philology 2010;107 (3):360-365.
Atkins, Carl D., ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007.
Atkins, Carl D. The Importance of Compositorial Error and Variation to the Emendation of Shakespeare’s Texts: A Bibliographic Analysis of Benson’s 1640 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Studies in Philology 2007;104 (3):306-39.
Atkins, Carl D. The Application of Bibliographic Principles to the Editing of Punctuation in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Studies in Philology 2003;100 (4):493-513.