"For this updated edition of one of Shakespeare's most problematic plays, Tom Lockwood has added a new introductory section on the latest scholarly trends, performance and adaptation practices which have occurred over the last two decades. Investigating the latest critical frames through which the play has been interpreted, the updated introduction also focuses on recent international performances on stage and screen (including Al Pacino's performances...

"SIGNATURE SHAKESPEARE SERIES Featuring remarkable laser-cut paper designs throughout, this new series offers stunning presentations of Shakespeare's plays, complete with scholarship, commentary, notes, and illustrated essays about Shakespeare's language and performances of the play. It's a keepsake package worthy of the greatest, and most loved, playwright in the English language. Each volume in the Signature Shakespeare series includes: - Illustration:...

"King Lear, one of Shakespeare's darkest and most savage plays, tells the story of the foolish and purblind Lear, who divides his kingdom, as he does his affections, according to vanity and whim. Lear's failure as a father engulfs himself and his world in turmoil and tragedy." "Eminent linguist and translator Burton Raffel offers generous help with vocabulary, pronunciation, and prosody and provides alternative readings of phrases and lines. His on-page...

Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is arrested in Ephesus. Aegeon tells Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, his tale: he was shipwrecked many years ago while sailing with his wife, Aemilia, and two pairs of identical twins--their twin sons, both named Antipholus, and twin servants, both named Dromio. In the course of the storm, his wife, one of their sons, and one their servants, were lost. At eighteen, Aegeon had allowed the remaining Antipholus and Dromio...

An overview of Shakespeare's theatrical career, commentary on past productions, and a scene-by-scene analysis accompany Shakespeare's play about unrequited love and mistaken identity.

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

"From the hilarious mischief of Puck to the rough humor of the self-centered Bottom and his fellow players, from the palace of Theseus in Athens to the magic wood where fairies play, Shakespeare's lyrical A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play of enchantment and an insightful portrait of the predicaments of love. Now the most extensively annotated edition of the play to date makes it completely accessible to readers in the twenty-first century and a...

The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the Puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years' separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. She refuses to reveal her lover's identity and is condemned to wear a scarlet letter 'A' sewn on to her clothes. Roger resolves to discover the man's identity, and over the next seven years...

A storm strikes a ship carrying Alonso, Ferdinand, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Stephano, and Trinculo, who are on their way to Italy after coming from the wedding of Alonso's daughter, Claribel, to the prince of Tunis in Africa. The royal party and the other mariners, with the exception of the unflappable Boatswain, begin to fear for their lives. Lightning cracks, and the mariners cry that the ship has been hit. Everyone prepares to sink.

The Sonnets are William Shakespeare's most popular works, and a few of them, such as Sonnet 18, Sonnet 116, and Sonnet 73, have become the most widely-read poems in all of English literature.