Description
* Concise introductions to the plays and other works
* Images of how the plays first appeared in print, giving your eReader a taste of the Elizabethan texts
* ALL 38 plays and each with their own contents table – navigate easily between acts and scenes – find that special quotation quickly!
* Includes 17 apocryphal plays, with mysterious works such as THE BIRTH OF MERLIN and VORTIGERN AND ROWENA, available nowhere else
* Special LOST PLAYS section, with concise information on Shakespeare’s lost works
* Includes the special bonus play of DOUBLE FALSEHOOD, which the critic Lewis Theobald claimed was Shakespeare’s lost play in 1727. Decide for yourself – could this really be the long lost CARDENIO’
* ALL the sonnets and other poetry, with excellent formatting, in their own special contents table – find that special sonnet quickly and easily!
* Apocryphal poems, presented with brief introductions explaining their history
* Special BONUS text of Charles and Mary Lamb’s adaptations for children, with their original Victorian artwork
* Useful SOURCES section – spend hours discovering rare medieval texts that shaped Shakespeare’s greatest works. E.g. Thomas Kyd’s play that influenced HAMLET, Holinshed’s Chronicles that inspired history plays and the great MACBETH and many more!
* 5 biographies – explore the bard’s mysterious life from multiple sources across history
* Special literary criticism section boasts 11 works by writers as varied as Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Pope, Bernard Shaw and Tolstoy
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
* Useful ‘Glossary of Elizabethan Language’, which will aid your comprehension of difficult words and phrases
* UPDATED with line numbers to all 38 plays, in response to customers’ requests
* UPDATED with a special Quotations section, with hundreds of famous quotations from the plays and poetry
CONTENTS
The Plays
HENRY VI, PART 2
HENRY VI, PART 3
HENRY VI, PART 1
RICHARD III
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
TITUS ANDRONICUS
TAMING OF THE SHREW
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
ROMEO AND JULIET
RICHARD II
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
KING JOHN
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
HENRY IV, PART I
HENRY IV, PART II
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
HENRY V
JULIUS CAESAR
AS YOU LIKE IT
TWELFTH NIGHT
HAMLET
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
OTHELLO
KING LEAR
MACBETH
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
CORIOLANUS
TIMON OF ATHENS
PERICLES
CYMBELINE
THE WINTER’S TALE
THE TEMPEST
HENRY VIII
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
The Lost Plays
LOVE’S LABOUR’S WON
CARDENIO
DOUBLE FALSEHOOD
The Sources
LIST OF THE PLAYS’ SOURCES
The Apocryphal Plays
ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM
THE BIRTH OF MERLIN
KING EDWARD III
LOCRINE
THE LONDON PRODIGAL
THE PURITAN
THE SECOND MAIDEN’S TRAGEDY
SIR JOHN OLDCASTLE
THOMAS LORD CROMWELL
A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY
SIR THOMAS MORE
FAIR EM
MUCEDORUS
THE MERRY DEVIL OF EDMONTON
EDMUND IRONSIDE
THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK
VORTIGERN AND ROWENA
The Adaptations
TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE BY CHARLES AND MARY LAMB
The Poetry
THE SONNETS
VENUS AND ADONIS
THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
A LOVER’S COMPLAINT
The Apocryphal Poetry
TO THE QUEEN
A FUNERAL ELEGY FOR MASTER WILLIAM PETER
SONNETS TO SUNDRY NOTES OF MUSIC
The Criticism
PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE AND NOTES ON PLAY BY SAMUEL JOHNSON
NOTES TO COMEDIES BY SAMUEL JOHNSON
NOTES TO TRAGEDIES BY SAMUEL JOHNSON
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS ON SHAKESPEARE EDITED BY D. NICHOL SMITH
A STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
SHAKESPEARE BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS BY WILLIAM HAZLITT
TESTIMONY OF THE SONNETS AS TO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYS AND POEMS BY JESSE JOHNSON
ON SHAKESPEARE – BY LEO TOLSTOY
EXTRACTS FROM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY VICTOR HUGO
SHAKESPEARE’S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WORKING CLASSES BY ERNEST CROSBY
A LETTER BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
The Biographies
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR BY NICHOLAS ROWE
SHAKESPEARE: HIS LIFE, ART, AND CHARACTERS BY HENRY NORMAN HUDSON
LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY SIR SIDNEY LEE
SHAKESPEARE’S LOST YEARS IN LONDON BY ARTHUR ACHESON
THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM SHAKESPEARE WROTE BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
Shakespeare’s Last Will and Testament
Resources:
Quotations
Glossary of Elizabethan Language
