Books by William Shakespeare

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Book SynopsisThe greatest sonnets ever written, by the greatest poet and playwright in the English language

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Book SynopsisThis Norton Critical Edition of one of Shakespeare’s earliest and best-loved comedies is based on the First Folio (1623).Table of Contentsclick here for table of contents

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Book SynopsisIn The Tragedy of King Richard III, Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of one of history’s most repellent, and the theater’s most mesmerizing, figures.

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Book SynopsisThis Norton Critical Edition looks at the full range of opinion and interpretation of this major play from its origins to the present day, from its genius (William Hazlitt) to its being a hateful work, although Shakespearean throughout (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and beyond.Table of ContentsContentsList of IllustrationsIntroductionThe Text of Measure for MeasureA Note on the TextTextual VariantsSOURCESPROBABLE SOURCES1. Giraldi Cinthio : From Hecatommithi2.1. : From The Tragedy of EpitiaPRIMARY SOURCES1. George Whetstone : From Promos and Cassandra2. King James I : From Basilikon Doron [The King's Gift]ANALOGUES1. Thomas Lupton : From The Second Part of Too Good to Be True2. Barnaby Rich : From The Adventures of BrusanusCRITICISM1. Alexander Pope : From Preface to The Works of Shakespear2. Charlotte Lennox : From Shakespear Illustrated3. Samuel Johnson : From Preface to The Plays of William Shakespeare and Comments on Measure for Measure4. Elizabeth Inchbald : From Remarks on Measure for Measure5. William Hazlitt : From Characters of Shakespear's Plays6. S. T. Coleridge : From Table Talk7.1. : From Literary Remains8. Frederick S. Boas : The Problem: Plays and Measure for Measure9. A. C. Bradley : From Shakespearean Tragedy10. Algernon Swinburne : From Shakespeare11. G. Wilson Knight : From The Wheel of Fire12. J. W. Lever : The Date of Measure for Measure13. Rosalind Miles : From The Problem of Measure for Measure14. Jonathan Dollimore : Transgression and Surveillance in Measure for Measure15. Kathleen McLuskie : From The Patriarchal Bard: Feminist Criticism and Shakespeare: King Lear and Measure for Measure16. Daniel Massey : The Duke in Measure for Measure17. Marliss C. Desens : From The Bed-Trick in English Renaissance DramaADAPTATIONS AND RESPONSES1. William D'Avenant : From The Law against Lovers2. Charles Gildon : From Measure for Measure, or, Beauty the Best Advocate3. Charles Marowitz : From Measure for MeasureSelected Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare's black comedy.A complex play that combines pathos and humor, The Merchant of Venice also introduces one of Shakespeare's most memorable villains, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who famously demands a “pound of flesh” for what he is owed.This revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as: • An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater • A special introduction to the play by the editor, Kenneth Myrick• Notes on the sources of The Merchant of Venice • Dramatic criticism from Nicholas Rowe, William Hazlitt, Elmer Edgar Stoll, and others • A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions • Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable text • And more...Table of ContentsThe Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare - Edited by Kenneth Myrick Nicholas Rowe: From The Works of Mr. William ShakespearWilliam Hazlitt: From Characters of Shakespear?s PlaysAnonymous: ?Henry Irving?s Shylock?Elmer Edgar Stoll: From ShylockLinda Bamber: The Avoidance of Choice: A Woman?s PrivilegeAlexander Leggatt: The Fourth and Fifth ActsSylvan Barnet: ?The Merchant of Venice? on the Stage and ScreenNEWLY ADDED ESSAYS: Robert Smallwood: The End of "The Merchant of Venice": Four Versions

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Book SynopsisDisplaying the bold vision and growing skill of a young playwright, these are Shakespeare’s first three history plays, covering some sixty tumultuous years of English history. Their pageantry, violence, and stirring speeches excite audiences with action as well as character, and midway through the final play in this trilogy, a shocking, clever, inimitably evil new voice is heard—that of Richard of Gloucester, destined to become England’s most fearsome and hated ruler of all time, Richard III.

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Book SynopsisA magnificent drama of love and war, this riveting tragedy presents one of Shakespeare''s greatest female characters—the seductive, cunning Egyptian queen Cleopatra. The Roman leader Mark Antony, a virtual prisoner of his passion for her, is a man torn between pleasure and virtue, between sensual indolence and duty . . . between an empire and love. Bold, rich, and splendid in its setting and emotions, Antony And Cleopatra ranks among Shakespeare''s supreme achievements.

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Book SynopsisOne of the greatest plays of all time, the compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother’s infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s death and burial, the play within a play, the “closet scene” in which Hamlet accuses his mother of complicity in murder, and breathtaking swordplay are just some of the elements that make Hamlet an enduring masterpiece of the theater.Each Edition Includes:• Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and

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Book SynopsisIn this striking tragedy of political conflict, Shakespeare turns to the ancient Roman world and to the famous assassination of Julius Caesar by his republican opponents. The play is one of tumultuous rivalry, of prophetic warnings–“Beware the ides of March”–and of moving public oratory, “Friends, Romans, countrymen!” Ironies abound and most of all for Brutus, whose fate it is to learn that his idealistic motives for joining the conspiracy against a would-be dictator are not enough to sustain the movement once Caesar is dead.Each Edition Includes:• Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive

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Book SynopsisA king foolishly divides his kingdom between his scheming two oldest daughters and estranges himself from the daughter who loves him. So begins this profoundly moving and disturbing tragedy that, perhaps more than any other work in literature, challenges the notion of a coherent and just universe. The king and others pay dearly for their shortcomings-as madness, murder, and the anguish of insight and forgiveness that arrive too late combine to make this an all-embracing tragedy of evil and suffering.Each Edition Includes:• Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

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Book SynopsisNo dramatist has ever seen with more frightening clarity into the heart and mind of a murderer than has Shakespeare in this compelling tragedy of evil. Taunted into asserting his “masculinity” by his ambitious wife, Macbeth chooses to embrace the Weird Sisters’ prophecy and kill his king-and thus, seals his own doom. Fast-moving and bloody, this drama has the extraordinary energy that derives from a brilliant plot replete with treachery and murder, and from Shakespeare’s compelling portrait of the ultimate battle between a mind and its own guilt.Each Edition Includes:• Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with

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Book SynopsisThe newly revised, wonderfully authoritative First Folio of William Shakespeare’s Complete Works, edited by acclaimed Shakespearean scholars and endorsed by the world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company Skillfully assembled by Shakespeare’s fellow actors in 1623, the First Folio was the original Complete Works—arguably the most important literary work in the English language. But starting with Nicholas Rowe in 1709 and continuing to the present day, Shakespeare editors have mixed Folio and Quarto texts, gradually corrupting the original Complete Works with errors and conflated textual variations. The second edition of the Complete Works features annotations and commentary from Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen—two of today’s preeminent Shakespeare scholars—as well as cutting-edge textual design, on-page glossaries for contemporary readers, stage directions from RSC directors, a sixteen-page ins

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies were written in a remarkably short period of time, between 1598 and 1606. Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear are each so singular an achievement that any rereading of them reinforces the awe and almost idolatrous worship that this most uncanny of the world’s great writers invariably inspires. In these four plays, Shakespeare engages the problem that is central to tragedy and crucial to any human community—the problem of violence and revenge—on an unprecedented scale. No other literary texts have been more instrumental in deepening our knowledge of ourselves as individuals and as a civilization. This authoritative edition of the plays is supplemented with footnotes, bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substantial introduction in which Tony Tanner discusses each play individually while setting each in context.

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare’s histories—containing within their crowded tableaux all of the tragedies, confusions, and beauties of human life—are not only drama of the highest order. They also serve as windows through which generations have made themselves familiar with crucial episodes in English history. For an Elizabethan England that had already emerged onto the stage of world power and was hungry to understand the sources and nature of its identity, Shakespeare provided a grandeur born of the transforming power of his art. This volume contains Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3; Richard III; and King John. The texts, authoritatively edited by Sylvan Barnet, are supplemented with textual notes, bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substantial introduction in which Tony Tanner discusses each play individually and in the context of Shakespeare’s work.(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

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Book SynopsisThe Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Poems: Shakespeare contains selections from Shakespeare's work, including his sonnets, his narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, songs and speeches, and an index of first lines.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare arrived at his splendid maturity as an artist in his second cycle of history plays. With their superb battle scenes; their magnificent major and minor characters; their stories of ambition, usurpation, guilt, and redemption; and their profound ideas about the social order, these plays represent the Elizabethan historical drama in its full glory. And thanks to parts one and two of Henry IV our literature is graced—in the figure of the dissolute and boastful knight Sir John Falstaff—with one of the greatest comic creations in the history of the stage. This volume contains Richard II; Henry IV, Part One; Henry IV, Part Two; Henry V; and Henry VIII. The texts, authoritatively edited by Sylvan Barnet, are supplemented with textual notes, a bibliography, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, a helpful family tree of the Houses of Lancaster and York, and a substantial introduction in which acclaimed scholar

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Book SynopsisShakespeare’s later comedies were written at the astonishing pace of about two plays a year. In them, he moves beyond the farce of his earlier comedies to richer and more varied dramas. These range from the famous “problem plays,” which blend humor with tragedy, to the idyllic romances set in such timeless locales as the Forest of Arden. They contain some of his wittiest and most memorable characters, from cross-dressing heroines, bantering lovers, and wisecracking fools to the villainous but sympathetic Shylock and the boisterous and bawdy Falstaff. This volume contains The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure. The authoritatively edited text of the plays is supplemented with footnotes, bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substant

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Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare’s last four plays carry us across space and time—from classical antiquity to Roman Britain to pagan Sicily to a remote island—and they move as well into a wilder geography of the imagination, one dominated by the wondrous and fantastical, and by reconciliation and renewal. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest are famously fraught with shipwrecks and adventures, magic and disguise, speaking statues and ethereal spirits, tragic deceptions and moving reunions, and they number among the most enduringly delightful of Shakespeare’s works. The texts of the plays, authoritatively edited by Sylvan Barnet, are supplemented here with textual notes, a bibliography, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substantial introduction in which acclaimed scholar Tony Tanner discusses each play individually and in the context of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. 

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Book SynopsisAll the world''s a stage. —JaquesThe complete play in five acts. A Shakespeare Recording Society Production. A full-cast performance featuring Vanessa Redgrave, Keith Michell, Max Adrian, Stanley Holloway and OthersAs You Like It is quintessential Shakespearean comedy, complete with a loquacious clown, lovers, disguises, rifts and reconciliation''s, and all within the atmospheric confines of the enchanted Forest of Arden. As the title suggests, As You Like It is a play in which everyone gets their way, where sinners are redeemed and where love holds sway over all. And because it is Shakespeare, even so light a comedy contains a wealth of keen observations about humanity in general, and in particular about the age-old tension between so-called civilized society and the state of nature from which it evolved. No less poetically-accomplished than Shakespeare''s'' more serious works,

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Book SynopsisThe Winter''s Tale was one of the very last plays Shakespeare wrote, a moving romance whose themes are sin, forgiveness, death, rebirth, and the power of Time and Nature to heal all wounds. Based on a novella by Shakespeare''s enemy and arch rival Robert Greene, The Winter''s Tale introduces Perdita, perhaps the Bard''s most richly symbolic character. At times tragic, at times humorous, but always entertaining and instructive, The Winters Tale is a complex and rewarding work by the greatest dramatist of all time.A Shakespeare Society Production. The complete play in four acts.

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