William Shakespeare

A blind musician plays to the spirits of the dead. A priest is attacked by heads that have left their bodies. An old man meets a woman who has no face. Read these and many more strange, ghostly stories from old Japan – and be afraid!!

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its highly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, melancholy philosophising and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre.

The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers * a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings * on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions, and much else * detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances, and changing critical attitudes to the play * illustrated with production photographs and related art * full index to introduction and commentary * durable sewn binding for lasting use

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous love stories in the world. But it is more than a great love story. It is also about life and death, happiness and sadness, and the terrible hate between two great families. Shakespeare's beautiful tale is still as popular today as it was more than 400 years ago.

This wonderful story of fairies, dreams and lovers is as popular today as it was in Shakespeare's time. In a wood outside Athens, four young people are following their dreams, while fairies play strange games with them. Their world seems unreal but is it really very different from our own?

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous love stories in the world. But it is more than a great love story. It is also about life and death, happiness and sadness, and the terrible hate between two great families. Shakespeare's beautiful tale is still as popular today as it was more than 400 years ago.

Macbeth, a brave soldier, is trusted by the Scottish king. Then a strange meeting with three witches makes him greedy for power. Macbeth wants to be king. He and his evil wife make murderous plans. But how many people will have to die before their dreams come true? This Penguin Reader play is written for acting – making English come alive.

Bassanio wants to get married, but he has no money and a lot of debts. He asks his friend Antonio for a loan, but Antonio is waiting for his ships to return. Until then, he has nothing to lend. To help Bassanio, he borrows money from a money-lender – and agrees to an unusual condition. If Antonio cannot repay the loan in three months, the money-lender will cut a pound of flesh from his body. Will Antonio be able to repay the loan? Or will he die?

Othello is a popular soldier who is in love with his beautiful new wife. He also has good friends – like Iago, another soldier. So when Iago tells him terrible stories about his wife, Desdemona, who should Othello believe? Will jealousy destroy all their lives? This is one of William Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers — A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings — Extensive introduction gives full attention to the play's bold treatment of racial themes, gender, and social relations — Detailed performance history designed to meet the needs of theatre professionals — On-page commentary and notes explain language, word-play, and staging — Appendices on music in the play and a full translation of the Italian novella from which the story derives — Illustrated with production photographs and related art — Full index to introduction and commentary — Durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major Top page achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the works for modern readers — a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings — on-page and facing-page commentary and notes explain language and allusions — detailed introductions consider the sonnets' biographical and literary background, how the poems relate to the plays, dating and textual matters, and the mysteries of 'Mr W. H.' and the 'Dark Lady' — includes poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth century — full index to introductions and commentary — durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'

The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers — a new, modern-spelling text, based on the Quarto text of 1608 — on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions and much else — detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances and changing critical attitudes to the play — illustrated with production photographs and related art — includes 'The Ballad of King Lear' and related offshoots — full index to introduction and commentary — durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'

Classic / British English (Available February 2008) This wonderful story of fairies, dreams and lovers is as popular today as it was in Shakespeare's time. In a wood outside Athens, four young people are following their dreams, while fairies play strange games with them. Their world seems unreal but is it really very different from our own?

Each volume is hardback with quarter binding and foil blocking on spine and is beautifully illustrated throughout. Each play includes an introduction and notes to aid the reader and the plays are organised by theme in three volumes. Volume I covers Shakepseare's comedies and also includes an essay on the genius of Shakespeare. Volume II includes the tragedies and Volume III includes the historical plays along with Shakespeare's poetry and a very useful glossary to help the reader. The three volumes are presented in a slipcase to make a very attractive set which not only covers the complete works of Shakespeare but includes additional material to inform and enlighten the reader and make these classic works more accessible.

This volume in the exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespeare features: vivid, readable introduction for each poem by noted scholar David Bevington, modern spelling and punctuation, comprehensive text notes, an-up-to-date, annotated bibliography, and an index to the first lines of the sonnets.

William Shakespeare's romantic comedy about love and marriage. When four young lovers get lost in the forest, the fairies that live there play jokes on them — turning love into hate and hate into love. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. This Macmillan Reader is wriiten as a playscript and includes original extracts.

Romeo and Juliet are in love, but their families are enemies. In desperation, they marry in secret but tragedy unfolds ... Macbeth is to be King of Scotland – but at what cost? King Lear divides his kingdom between his daughters with unexpected consequences.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of «Hamlet», «King Lear», «Othello», and «Macbeth» as well as the moving history plays and the comedies such as «A Midsummer Night's Dream», «The Taming of the Shrew» and «As You Like It» with their magical combination of humour, ribaldry and tenderness. This volume is a reprint of the Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in chronological order in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets, as well as his longer poems «Venus and Adonis» and «The Rape of Lucrece».

This is the most famous of all Shakespeare's plays — a story of passionate young love. What's in a name? Does it really matter if you are called Montague or Capulet? When Romeo, son of Lord and Lady Montague, falls in love with the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, he finds out that it does matter. It makes all the difference in the world, because both families hate each other bitterly. For a time, Romeo and Juliet manage to keep their love secret. But when Romeo is sent away from Verona, and arrangements are made for Juliet to marry Paris, a friend of her father's, hope begins to die. Can any of their friends help the young lovers to be together for ever?

Othello is a successful general, but a very simple man who trusts Iago completely. When he elopes with and marries Desdemona, he is overwhelmed by the happiness that seems to be his. Iago, embittered by his failure to win promotion in the army, decides to poison the general’s happiness...

William Shakespeare's tragic story of the star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, is as relevant now as it was over 400 years ago. Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. This Macmillan Reader is wriiten as a playscript and includes original extracts.

Nobody can remember why the Capulet family and the Montague family hate each other but the feud is longstanding and brutal. When Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague meet and fall in love the result is tragic, and peace between the two families is only possible after much bloodshed and death. Classic themes such as violence, prejudice, teenage love and parental problems are as relevant today as they were 400 years ago and help make Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet a favourite with young students. In this script adaptation they will have the opportunity not only to read the story but also to act and to live the emotions for themselves. This edition of Shakespeare’s classic considers all the stages of a theatrical production from the auditions to the opening night, allowing students the chance to explore the play as it was originally intended: not as a story but as a performance.

These Comedies are among the best loved of Shakespeare's plays. In each a problem emerges, is then intensified to a point of maximum confusion and potential upset, before the chaos is resolved, however improbably, into general goodwill and a spate of marriages. The triumph of these plays lies in the way they mingle humorous stage business and dexterous word play with a more serious study of identity, gender, dreaming, the meaning of love, even of the theatre itself. They reassure us that with all its faults, the world will always in the end be redeemable. 'Not for an age but for all time.' So Ben Jonson established what we now take for granted: Shakespeare's unique place among the world's great authors. Romeo and Juliet shows us the archetypal story of fated young love; Hamlet, the tortured psyche of the young prince of Denmark; Othello, a strikingly modern representation of racial difference; King Lear, a man stripped of all material and psychological comforts; and Macbeth, a dark investigation of the origins and effects of, evil. The plays throw a fascinating light on the concerns of Shakespeare's day, yet offer perennial insights into the nature of human emotion.

When the ghost of Hamlet's father reveals the terrible secret of Elsinore, the result is chaos and tragedy for the young Prince of Denmark. Will he avenge his father's murder? Is he really mad? Does he love the beautiful Ophelia?