William Shakespeare Books

It says something about Tom Stoppard's sense of humour that he considers Shakespeare's longest play (which often runs for over four hours when performed) perfectly fair game to be ultra-truncated into a short, 15 minute performance.

This play is rarely performed these days as nobody really pays to go and see a performance they know will last just 15 minutes. However, the play forms the core of Stoppard's `Dogg's Hamlet' and also effectively forms the last 15 minutes of the comedy performance, `The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)', so you may have seen it in one of those contexts.

This play, then, is to Hamlet what `1066 And All That' is to English history - it gives you not everything, but just everything you can remember: it has all the quotable and famous lines and contains just enough plot that you can understand the whole play. And if you already know Hamlet quite well, then the choice of dialogue and scenes for inclusion and the rapid changes from one to another are quite funny; the joke might fall flat on those seeing Hamlet for the first time, but it's a rare hilarious gem for those in the know.

Read the book, or better yet - track down a performance, or use this script to stage one yourself.

This is a little known but great play. It is not so much that the actual wording is so good, in fact, any cast looking at this would think that it is gut-wrenchingly stupid. It is all in the presentation. Shakespeare's longest play ever... cut down into fifteen minutes. Who needs the rest anyway?

Not only does Tom Stoppard brilliantly compress one of Shakespeare's longer plays into 15 minutes, he even adds on a 2 minute encore!! A hilarious edition of one of Shakespeare's lasting works. A great play for a cast to perform (trust me, I know!). Loads of fun to read AND perform.

Compiled from the best extant leaves of Shakespeare's First Folio, this edition is a labor of love. The binding and slipcover are more impressive in the Norton's first edition, but the pages within contain Shakespeare in a way that's rare today: unedited, giving a real sense of Elizabethan and Jacobean times.

Of course, the absence of footnotes or explanatory text places the burden on the reader, and it's likely you'll want to have some supplementary materials handy in case a particularly obscure turn of phrase arises. On the other hand, the remarkable introduction by the late Charleton Hinman provides a remarkable glimpse into the history of the First Folio, and is essential reading in itself.

It does not, of course, contain all of Shakespeare's plays, as scholarship has enlarged his ouevre over time; but just about everything is here.

A huge volume (14 inches high by 9 inches deep and over 3 inches thick), this is the ultimate coffee table book - in itself, an suggestion of period bookcraft. If you have the space, and can do a healthy bench press, this is the kind of educational experience that you could spend a lifetime poring over.

This is a superb book in every way: fine scholarship, painstaking reproduction, beautiful presentation. Nothing else is in the class of the Norton First Folio facsimile. To those who may look askance at the price, I can only say the book is worth every penny. What Heminge and Condell said in "To the great Variety of Readers" about the original Folio is equally applicable to this reproduction: "Iudge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the iust rates, and welcome. But, what euer you do, Buy."

The best resource of it's kind for anyone interested in getting back to the "roots" of Shakespeare. If Amazon allowed half stars, I'd take off half a star for it's price. It's too expensive to be accessible to students, the people who could get the most usage and benefit out of this fantastic book.

St. Andrews, Scotland
This is by far the best annotated HAMLET by William Shakespeare yet
produced, in my opinion!

I have studied this drama over fifty years.

The last speech:

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act,

Had I but time - as this fell sergeant, death,

In strict in his arrest - O, I could tell you -

But let it be. Act. 5, scene 2 Hamlet

Or from Act 3. scene l

It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. Claudius

In this day and age, Elizabethan English must be explained (annotated).

So is it!

Dag Stomberg

This really is "The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark" and not only the Prince but his family. Not only his family but his friends. The tragedy started in the previous generation. Will it end with Hamlet?

Many people are interested in dissecting underlying themes and read more into the characters actions than was probably intended. Many of phrases from Hamlet now challenge Bible for those popular quotes that no one remembers where they came from. The real fun is in just reading the story and as you find that it is not as foreign as you may have thought; you see many characters like these around you today.

A synopsis, Old Hamlet conquered Old Fortinbras seizing Fortinbras' land. Now that Old Hamlet is dead, Young Fortinbras wants his land back and is willing to take it by force. Meanwhile back in Dänemark Prince Hamlet who is excessively grieving the loss of his father, the king, gets an interesting insight from his father's ghost. Looks like Old Hamlet was a victim of a "murder most foul"; it appears his mother and uncle were in cahoots on the murder. On top of that they even get married before the funeral meats are cold.

The story is about Hamlet's vacillating as to what to do about his father's murder. However he does surprise many with his persistence and insight.

You will find many great movie presentations and imitations of the story; this is an intriguing read but was really meant to be watched.

This cover caught my eye, with its snazzy black and red thing. Plus, when I paged through it, I wasn't disappointed. Clear text, useful notes (footnotes, not endnotes), and an informative introduction and following essay. I'm only an amateur, but I would recommend this edition over any of the others I've seen.

This series is wonderful to use in classrooms as a supplement for students with special needs. I use it at the high school level when including students with intellectual disablitites in the regular curriculum. It also serves as a fun review for the entire class!

This was the perfect text to get my 10-year old reading Shakespeare! She's a bright girl, but I thought the "real" text of Hamlet might be a bit burdensome, so when I saw this book, I bought it right away. She loved it! Not only did she understand it, she liked reading it.
Yay, Lois Burdett!!!!! Applause! (can you hear it??)

I teach third grade in an urban school in a very large district and have used Burdett's version of Hamlet as my sole reading program component for the last 2 months. My students have showed more growth in comprehension, vocabulary, writitng skills and public speaking, than I have ever seen with any other class. Not only has their work showed such growth, but their passion for reading has flourished unbelievably. My class ranges from d's to average b's to high honor roll and every child has grown and every child now loves Shakespeare. The wording that Burdett uses is enjoyable and comprehendable yet challenging enough to keep the educational bar raised without compromising the accuracy and intent of Shakespeare's original version. Burdett also incorporates written material and illustrations by students in her second grade class. This helps the children in my class relate to the book even more. They have developed a thirst for Shakespeare that I enjoy trying to quench everyday. Every child is quoting Shakespeare and reciting soliloquys, and I credit much of that to Burdett and her brilliant writing. I loved this book so much that I have personally purchased her entire series and have displayed them all in my classroom. These books are checked out by students in my class everday. They are by far the most frequently read books in my class. She has truly brought Shakespeare back to life in the classroom and on behalf of my students and myself as well, I thank her. Classic literature is back!!!!!

This being one of Shakespeare's less-performed works, I purchased the tape to read with the text, before seeing a production. It's also one of the few audiobooks I've purchased. Worth every penny--like listening to a radio play! Wonderful diction, stirring readings, not what I expected from a play that--let's face it--is confusing for those not versed in English history. Having gone through it once, I can now listen to it without the text and pretty much follow the action. Glad I purchased Parts II and III at the same time.

This being one of Shakespeare's less-performed works, I purchased the tape to read with the text, before seeing a production. It's also one of the few audiobooks I've purchased. Worth every penny--like listening to a radio play! Wonderful diction, stirring readings, not what I expected from a play that--let's face it--is confusing for those not versed in English history. Having gone through it once, I can now listen to it without the text and pretty much follow the action. Glad I purchased Parts II and III at the same time.

As three television series and numerous versions on stage have demonstrated, the Henry VI trilogy plays very well on stage, even when given without cuts. None of the action and certainly none of the characters are particularly complex; although a good deal of background information about Richard II and Henry IV is requisite to appreciating what is happening here. And when "Richard III" follows, this play is made so much clearer appearing as it does as the logical consequence of all the events that came before it. Therefore I am delighted to report (1) are now available as late entries in the remarkable Arkangel Shakespeare series put out by Penguin Putnam, and (2) they make for some terrific listening.

Using some military music and representative battle cries for the many combat scenes and the opening and closing of doors to let us know about entrances and exits, this set gives us a fast-paced account of Shakespeare's dramatic shaping of so many years of tumultuous English history.

Now this play has a large cast and it is very seldom clear just who is speaking at any given moment--a problem endemic to any play on tape with several characters--and it is recommended that one have a text handy during the first hearing. Or if you have seen the magnificent BBC productions of this trilogy, you might be able to know who is speaking from your memory of that series. Suffice it to say, most of the important characters can be recognized by their voices, although (as many critics have pointed out) all the men do tend to speak alike until the very idiosyncratic voice of Richard Gloucester appears late in Part II.

Since the demise of the old legendary series on Decca/London label back in the LP days, this is the only recording we have of these three plays; and we are very fortunate they are done so well.

The "Richard III" came out at the same time and I will record my comments about that set on the appropriate webpage.

This is one of the best books ever written on the performing arts. By focusing in on Barrymore's Shakespearean acting only, Morrison manages to show how a second-rate light comedian turned himself into a great artist by sheer hard work -- and then, horrifyingly, how an artist transformed himself into a clown through laziness and dissipation. Through the use of the actor's playbooks and impressive research, Morrison does the impossible and brings Barrymore's stage performances as Richard III and Hamlet so vividly alive you'll swear you're in the theater watching them (I was holding my breath at the end of "Hamlet"). Along the way there are vivid portraits of the idealistic, progressive theater in the 1920's and, a decade later, the ancestry of today's poisonous and envious celebrity culture. Once you read this book you'll never look at Barrymore the same way again.

Michael Morrison has provided us with a stirring portrait of one of America's greatest actors, John Barrymore. His book is a vivid account of Barrymore's innovative approach to Shakespearean acting and subsequent rise to fame. This book is required reading for Shakespearean scholars and Barrymore enthusiasts alike.

Michael Morrison's book fills a much needed gap in the large Barrymore biographical canon: it tells the story of Barrymore the artist. Many of the other great biographies of the man and family (Margot Peter's THE HOUSE OF BARRYMORE, anything by James Kotsilibas-Davis, to name only two of many excellent others) understandably short-shrift the details found here, in favor of the fabulous "bon mots" and the large tragic arc of his life. Morrison, if it's possible to believe, makes that tragedy all the more heartbreaking by detailing the hard work that Barrymore put himself through to transform himself from a light comedian into the greatest tragic actor of his generation - and arguably the last great tragic actor of the American theatre.

The detailed recreations of Barrymore's acting in RICHARD III and HAMLET are facinating. They provide all of us who have come after some small picture of what it must have been like to actually see him on stage. It helps, I suppose, to be familiar with his film work, to have heard at least some of his Shakespearean recordings, in order to fully visualize Barrymore's "flashing, rapier" genius at work - but it's probably not necessary. A must for all Barrymore fans, actors, and theatre lovers, this book is a treasure. But beware, its story could break your heart.

Ask any high school English student: Reading the Bard's work aloud in a classroom doesn't necessarily inspire. Shakespeare's masterpieces are plays. As such, they were meant to be performed. Actors bring us the movement, rhythm, and passion of Shakespeare's work in a way that the printed word cannot.

Fortunately, Hinds's impressive artistic talents have now brought that life to the page. One page gives us the quiet stillness of a castle at night. Another brings us the ornamented swirl of courtiers. Yet another flares with action and swordplay.

With sensitivity, fidelity to the original script, and refreshing visual variety, this rendering of King Lear treats us both to the rhythms of a live performance and to changes of scene and landscape that are simply impossible on the stage. It is, in short, a masterpiece in its own right.

If you're like me, you never get as much out of reading a play as from witnessing it performed. The actors and director have studied the work and found its nuances, and their staging and delivery make a huge difference. When it's Shakespeare I also sometimes stop and puzzle over the language, which at least throws off the pacing and sometimes just leaves me feeling like I've missed something.

Experiencing that language through this graphic novel is more like seeing it performed than like reading it; only with castles and thunder storms and horses and battles, rather than just resourceful suggestions of the same. And, you can experience it again any time you want, and compare scenes and characters to arrive at a richer understanding. The art is vivid, expressive, varied, richly colored--and above all, expertly crafted to serve the Bard's story.

Gareth Hinds' King Lear is one of the most elegant yet accessible Shakespearian adaptations I've ever seen. Most efforts in the vein of Shakespear-for-comics make one of two bad choices: either they 'dumb it down' for what they think a comics audience can understand, or the text is so removed from the imagery that though the art may be well-rendered, they are really only illustrated manuscripts, not comics. Hinds makes neither of these mistakes; rather he uses the visual forms and tricks of comics to clarify the language without changing the text. In fact the text and the images are so flawlessly interwoven that the experience is closer to watching a great performance of the play than anything else. He balances the visuals in the same fashion the play balances the beauty of the poetry versus the bitterness and world-weariness of the sentiment -- the design and framing of the scenes is lavish yet strangely intimate, and he keeps his line light and colors airy, which only adds a deeper, ironic melancholy to the final sequences. Fantastic work; one of my favorite plays is now one of my favorite comics.

This is the best edition in the Arden collection I have read until now, by Charles Forker. Very helpful to understand meaning with clear footnotes and a serious introduction in which, for example, you learn about historical and fictional facts in the play, and many other clues.
I agreed with a reviewer of another Arden work who said: "The text itself is full of stumbling, often unhelpful endnotes - what students surely want are explanations of difficult words and figures, not a history of scholarly pedantry. The edition concludes with textual appendices."
It happened to me before but fortunately not in this work, which is excellent. The editor makes the difference. I hope Arden Series follows this line!

i'm very grateful,both for the quality and the delivery time.
thank you very much.

This play is the first of four histories involving the rise of Harry Bolingbroke into King Henry IV (parts I & II) and then his son, Prince Hal, into Henry V. These four plays are always popular with audiences and have many virtues, although they are quite different in affect and theatrical means. This play is full of poetry and carefully composed verse. The two Henry IV plays are blessed the Falstaff's glorious prose and Henry V has its own interesting dualities in Prince Hal finally becoming the King - are his comments sincere or full or irony or is he blind to the irony of his own making? But those are other plays.

As this play begins, the York line is in power as Richard II who came to power as a child. Henry Bolingbroke is the son of the Duke of Lancaster (John of Gaunt) and is also the Duke of Hereford as the Earl of Derby. Richard shows through his actions and weak decisions (both weak in strength and weak in acumen) that his hold on the throne is open to challenge. When Bolingbroke decides to make the challenge is open to debate, but he picks a fight with Mowbray and both end up banished instead. This causes a tremendous rift with the Duke of Lancaster and when he dies, Richard decides to seize Lancaster's possessions in Ireland instead of letting them pass to Bolingbroke.

Since Bolingbroke is now the new Duke of Lancaster he decides he is no longer the banished Duke of Hereford and returns to England. A number of rumors and challenges lead to Bolingbroke taking power and when Richard returns from Ireland his loss of his kingdom is accomplished without his realizing it. The rest of the play is the fall of Richard and the rise of Henry IV with the attendant strain on the loyalties of the peers.

Shakespeare's genius for verse and the exposition of character is blazingly manifest in this play and that is one of the reasons for its popularity and the walls of books written about this play. Richard's inwardness and self-absorption is quite communicated to us quite differently than Henry's boldness and aggression. The way the peers show their divided loyalties, anger, fear, and duplicity is also wonderfully done.

This Arden edition is from the third series and has some of the features of more modern scholarship. It is also almost exhaustively noted and resourced. The reader of this edition is given more than 150 pages of introductory material on the origins, language, meaning, and performance history of the play and can choose which to read and which to leave for another time. The notes on each page of text include notes to help the reader understand the text, but also notes on the history versus the play and Shakespeare's sources (such as Holinshead). There are longer notes at the back, and a textual analysis in the first appendix, a doubling chart for performance in appendix two, and a genealogical table for the third appendix (very useful). There is also a list of reference works and an index.

I am a huge fan of the Arden editions and enjoy reading the plays with all this helpful material and I strongly recommend this edition of this play.

This book is an excellent buy. If you like to read and always find yourself wishing you had more of a great writers work then this is the way to go. It contains almost if not everything he ever wrote. The book cover is flawless. If you know some one who collects books or do yourself than you got to get this one. I would however not recommend this for young kids because of its size.

THE LIBRARY SHAKESPEARE IS EXCELLANT. IT CONTAINS ALL OF SHAKESPERARE'S PLAYS, POEMS, AND SONNETS. IT HAS A BEAUTIFUL HARDCOVER, YET IT IS STILL THE EXACT SAME WORDS THAT SHAKESPEARE WROTE. I HIGHLY RECCOMEND THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE!

Do you want to know what "To be or not to be..." is really about? The script for Hamlet is here. On the other hand, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" is from Julius Caesar, which also gave us "the ides of March." This book is a joy, and it contains the complete works written by the Bard of Avon.

It appears, at first glance, that this book only contains the comedies written by Shakespeare, but that is because there are three Tables of Contents within the book. These lists are placed at the beginning of each section, and the following page numbers begin at one again. However, not in the case of the Poems and Sonnets, which are in the Historical Plays list.

There is an additional list for the exquisite plates, which add another dimension to the historical significance of this library. The artwork, such as the three witches who enter to thunder and lightning in Macbeth, is extraordinary. You will find the work of:
* Sir John Gilbert (1817-1897) who created almost 750 pictures just for Shakespeare's works.
* George Cruikshank, who was the son of Isaac Cruikshank, a Scottish painter, and the primary illustrator for Charles Dickens.
* Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532-1588). Dudley knew Shakespeare, and was once courtier in the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

For any student or lover of literature and art, or as a writer's reference, this is a requisite.

Victoria Tarrani

After LOVING the Hamlet Literature Guide I bought a while ago, I decided to try Macbeth. Again, I was extremely pleased with the quality of the materials, but also with the fact that Secondary Solutions and author Kristen Bowers actually accomplish what they claim--I really CAN teach the content standards through literature! These guides are perfect for the high school english teacher, but would also be good for a parent who is homeschooling and has a fear of, or never really understood Shakespeare. PERFECT!

I recommend this literature guide to anyone who has any fear of teaching Shakespeare. I was one of those teachers, and like wild dogs, the kids could smell it!! I used this literature guide for the first time a month ago, and my teaching and confidence has turned a 180. This workbook had everything I needed- I didn't have to make up my own worksheets or lessons. Just copy and go--and the kids are learning the content standards and understanding Shakespeare, too. AMAZING!

I purchased the Literature Guide for The Great Gatsby and was thrilled, but now am even more impressed with Macbeth. I would really recommend these lit guides to teachers who don't have a lot of extra time or don't want to take the extra time to write their own materials. Although I understand Shakespeare, teaching his plays are another story. This guide really gives me the confidence to be an expert on Macbeth, since it covers the play so well. Again, I would really recommend these lit guides for any teacher--I am looking forward to more titles!