The Folger Shakespeare Library edition
The play on the right-hand page, help on the left.
You can read this play on your own if the help sits beside the text instead of in front of it.
You want to read the play yourself, start to finish, and you want help to wait on the facing page until you ask for it.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the complete play, on every right-hand page, and nothing about it simplified.
Changes: only what you choose to look at. The notes and glosses sit on the facing page, with illustrations from the Folger’s collection and short essays on Shakespeare’s world.
Whose story is it?
the lovers’, at full length — Mercutio, the Nurse and the Friar included, with every speech in the play.
How much time does it ask?
368 pages in Simon & Schuster’s trade paperback. Most of it is the play; a lot of the rest is notes you can skip.
Simon & Schuster’s description: “the beloved facing-page format with helpful notes on the left and Shakespeare’s text on the right.”
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
Common questions
What is the Folger edition of Romeo and Juliet like?
The play is on the right-hand page and the notes are on the left, so you can read straight through and look across only when you need to. The current Simon & Schuster paperback is 368 pages, with illustrations from the Folger's collection and essays on Shakespeare's world.
More ways into Verona: No Fear Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet · The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed. René Weis · Oxford School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet