William Shakespeare Books

I ordered this book for my sister who was struggling with an online college English course. She could not understand Shakespeare and was really having a hard time. I found this book on Amazon and had it sent to her. She not only understands Shakespeare now, she actually enjoys it! The original writing is on one side of the page, and the plain English version is right beside it. Wonderful!! I have no doubt my sister will now make an A in her class as well as become a fan of Shakespeare!

Let me begin by saying that Hamlet is truly an amazing play. By far, my favorite drama, Shakespearian or otherwise. Telling the story of a man searching for the light amid mind-boggling darkness, Hamlet reveals more about the conflicts people face in their own lifetimes than any other piece of literature.

This edition includes an introduction about the life of Shakespeare, including a completed works list, and even some words of his own creation. After the unabridged play, several very noteworthy critical reviews reveal more and more about Hamlet than any other comparable binding. At the price and information contained within in its pages, you simply cannot find a better edition of this awe-inspiring drama.

As a college student who had to write a paper on Hamlet,Again,I of course had to get away from any classic ideas about the play. Being a student with a talent for writing I would never be able to "get away with," these common theories, as professor's expect much more. This book really helped me to create a rather ambitious and interesting thesis; one which went against the criticisms in the book, and was refreshingly new.

I like the individual criticisms in this book as they really force you to look harder for textual evidence. One of the BEST things about the book was that it included the whole play as well. That was so useful because I didn't have to juggle two books -one of them being the complete works of Shakespeare which weighs about 20lbs. I was able to take this book everywhere and work on it whenever I had spare time.

However, I would not sugesst this book for an individual who does not have a very strong background in Hamlet. You need to know the play Extremely well in order for this book to benefit you. If you do not know Hamlet inside and out, then this book will only cause confusion and you should probably stay away from it, as the theories may be difficult to comprehend.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. I find Shakespeare difficult. I need help. The Cambridge School Shakespeare editions, with the classroom activities and assignments on each facing page, give me the focus and direction I need to finally truly enjoy the text.

I thought I didn't like Shakespeare until I took a class on several of the plays. It turns out that I love Shakespeare when I'm doing close reading or studying it carefully but for whatever reason I find it extremely difficult to do on my own. The Cambridge School editions allow me to replicate the classroom experience on my own, providing enough background and questions for critical thought that I keep a close focus on the text. Previous times I've attempted to read 'Hamlet' I was struggling just to figure out what was going on; reading this edition I was analyzing the characters and considering different acting and directing choices. It's amazing.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING CHIEFLY PERTAINS TO THE NEW FOLGER LIBRARY EDITION.

William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is arguably the most famous play ever written in the English language; it presents the world with questions and characters that have been the subject of thespian and scholarly debate ever since the Prince of Denmark's first appearance on the stage of London's Globe Theatre. Probably written and first performed in 1601 (estimates vary between 1600 and 1602), the play draws on Saxo Grammaticus's late 12th/early 13th century chronicle "Gesta Danorum," which includes a popular legend with a similar plot centering around a prince named Amleth; as well as several more contemporaneous sources, primarily Francois de Belleforest's "Histoires Tragiques, Extraicts des Oeuvres Italiennes de Bandel" (1559-1580), which expands on the story told in the "Gesta Danorum," and a lost play known as the "Ur-Hamlet" (i.e., original "Hamlet"), sometimes also attributed to Shakespeare, but equally likely written by a different author a few decades earlier. Another work frequently cited in this context is 16th century playwright Thomas Kyd's "Spanish Tragedie."

Pursuant to Shakespeare's wishes and like all of his works, "Hamlet" was not immediately published, and the original manuscript did not survive. However, in the absence of copyright laws or other forms of protection of what today would be called the playwright's intellectual property rights, first bootleg copies (so-called quartos) based on transcripts made during or after performances began to appear in 1603. Yet, it would not be until 1623 - seven years after Shakespeare's 1616 death - that his former fellow actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell published 36 of his plays (including this one) in a collection known as the First Folio.

As no print version of any of Shakespeare's plays has a bona fide claim to its author's first-hand blessings, ever since the Bard's death the world is left with numerous questions about his characters' motivations and psychological makeup; first and foremost, in this particular case: who is this Prince of Denmark anyway, and what's driving him - is he a reluctant suicide or reluctant avenger? A Renaissance man? Wrecked by Freudian guilt? Genuinely mad, or merely putting on a clever act of deception? Or is he someone else entirely? - Indeed, we're even left in doubt as to what exactly it was that Shakespeare meant his characters to say, with all attendant interpretative consequences: Does the Prince wish for his "too too sullied" or his "too too solid" flesh to "melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew" in his first major soliloquy (Act I, Scene 2)? Does he really contemplate "the stamp of [that] one defect" which may fatally taint the perception of a man's other virtues, "be they as pure as grace," before meeting his father's ghost (I, 4)? Does Polonius, when sending Reynaldo on a spying mission after Laertes, refer to his scheme as "a fetch of wit" or "a fetch of warrant" (II, 1)? Do Hamlet's musings in "To be, or not to be" (III, 1) concern "enterprises of great pith and moment" or "of great pitch and moment," whose "currents turn awry and lose the name of action" by his doubts? Does or doesn't the sight of the Norwegian army while Hamlet is on his way to England (IV, 4) prompt him, who has so far failed to carry out his purpose, to reflect "How all occasions do inform against me," and conclude his soliloquy with the vow "from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth"?

How you answer any of these questions, and how you consequently view the play's characters, depends in no small part on the text you read. Like all Folger Shakespeare editions, this one is based on what the editors have deemed the "best early printed version," while allowing the reader a unique direct comparison of the principal reliable versions by including a text essentially combining these versions, with unobtrusive markers characterizing those passages appearing only in one particular version. For "Hamlet," the editors eschewed the play's very first (1603) quarto, which was possibly compiled by a journeyman actor and whose inconsistencies with all subsequent versions (textually as well as plot-wise and even regarding character names) have caused it to be generally considered a "bad" quarto, in favor of the 1604 Second Quarto, which some even believe to be based on Shakespeare's own first draft of the play and which, in any event, while more extensive than the 1623 First Folio (in turn, thought to be closest to the version(s) actually produced on the Globe Theatre stage), boasts about as secure a claim of authenticity as the latter. In some instances, the text follows the Second Quarto (Q2) without visually alerting the reader to the differences vis-a-vis the First Folio (F1), thus compelling those more used to the latter version to seek out the extensive end notes to reassure themselves that (in the examples given above) it might indeed be "solid flesh," "warrant," and "pith and moment" (F1) instead of "sullied flesh," "wit," and "pitch and moment" (Q2). In other instances, however, the First Folio's language (clearly marked as such) is given preference over that of the Second Quarto; while crucially, the text also includes all those passages *only* contained in the latter, including the "stamp of one defect" and "bloody thoughts" monologues, whose interpretation has such a direct bearing on many a reader's understanding of Hamlet's character.

The text is amplified by illustrations and annotations for those unfamiliar with 16th century English, scene-by-scene plot summaries, a short biography of Shakespeare, and introductory and concluding essays on this and the Bard's other plays and on Shakespearean theatre, as well as extensive suggestions for further reading, and a key to the play's most famous lines. While it is unlikely that after 400 years of debate any one version, be it in print, on stage or on screen, will be able to generate unanimous acceptance as the "definitive" rendition of this complex play, this is an excellent starting point for an in-depth excursion into the Prince of Denmark's world.

Also recommended:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox
Olivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection (Hamlet / Henry V / Richard III)
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Hamlet
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Peter Brook's King Lear
Richard III
Julius Caesar

If you are a teacher, I would look into buying another audio version of Romeo and Juliet. I have been using it as a tool to get the students to hear professional actors and to then ask them to use the same skills those professional actors use (inflection, emphasis, etc.) The problem is it is VERY difficult to hear...to the point that you have to sit 3 feet away to hear it at times. This simply does not work for a classroom.

The notes that John Andrews gives on all the Everyman Shakespeare editions that he edits are fabulous. I think his editions are the most user friendly for any actor, student, director and teacher. Some publishing house should get Mr. Andrews to do all the plays.

Poor Romeo.

Watching Romeo meander his way through the play is like tailgating a drunk driver. At any moment he could crash, and in the end he overcorrects his assumptions by swallowing the poison, and in some ways his death must be a relief to his troubled mind.

Romeo's status in the story changes with nearly every scene, whether by his own doing or by an external entity. However, his circumstance reflects in almost every case his willingness to succumb to his passions. From his love of Rosalind to his love for Juliet to his exile, he is a bundle of nerves. Taking a time out would slow the pace, and instead Shakespeare quickens it by transplanting Romeo's moment of joy with Juliet with a moment of action and consequence: the death of Mercutio.

Giving Romeo the chance to be happy might damage his character. A great tragedy yet today. What makes it great is that the basic storyline pulls everyone in, and once the story captures, we can start to appreciate the minor characters, like Capulet and the Nurse.

Shakespeare defines teen angst in this romantic tragedy. 14-year-old Juliet and Romeo falls in love at a party despite their family's feud. There are movies made from this play, but nothing beats reading the play itself to relish the writing of Shakespeare. Heart-wrenching and beautiful.

Caution Scalawags: May Cause Pulmonary Failure!, July 29, 2004
Reviewer: Professor Emeritus Percy Q. Johnstone (Darkest India) - See all my
reviews
Yes dear reader, it is I, Professor Emeritus Johnstone. As you may have
divined, as Professor Emeritus of American Literature, I am well versed with
dramatic writings from our sister nation, England. Now, many of you are
unfamiliar with the work, as William Shakespeare is relatively unknown in
the bumpkin-ridden land you call "The Colonies". However, you
lucky few will discover a goldmine of quotes such as "Alack, Alack,
Alack" and other favorites. But I, Professor Emeritus Johnstone,
diverge. Yes yes. For those of you who wish to pursue the god-given purpose
of the most noble art of teaching American Literature, you must be familiar
with the works of Shakespeare. As you are stupid, and not a professor, like
I, Professor Emeritus Johnstone, you undoubtedly do not understand, but no
matter. The story of "Romeo and Juliet" is simple. it opens in a
court yard in Venice where the political rebels, Pyramus and Thisbe are
plotting to overthrow the evil fascist government (oh how I, Professor
Emeritus Johnstone know that feeling. I confess, dear reader, that once I,
Professor Emeritus Johnstone, lived in America until government stooges
exiled me to darkest India for poliical subterfuge. Suberfuge! Bah!). Alas,
Lord Capulet's men break into the meeting and arrest poor Pyramus and
Thisbe, casting them into the darkest dungeon. Ah, but fortune smiles on our
two heroes, for in the cell next to them are the "Star-burned
lovers" Romeo and Juliet, who were imprisoned for plotting to overthrow
the evil Capulet. Together, they escape the prison, kill all the
fascist-swine guards, and blow up the prison, bringing us, dear reader,
rather neatly to the end of Act I.
Act II opens in Lord Montague's (Lord Capulet's chief of security) hall,
where he has just made posters offering 5000 marks for the heads of the four
rebels. Enter the villain (mustache and all) Tybalt (cousin to Count Paris)
the bounty-hunter. Tybalt, in a scene that moved even I, Professor Emeritus
Johnstone, gives a heartrending "soliliquy" in which he mourns on
he pain of killing those whose politico agendas you support. Thus ends Act
II. In Act III, we find...ROMEO WORKING FOR LORD CAPULET! He has become a
traitorous lap-dog to the very system he despises (oh reader, how I,
Professor Emeritus Johnstone, know this feeling!). Pyramus and his rebel
army storm the palace, and in the final scene, Pyramus kills his traitorous
lover, Romeo, driving a dagger through his jugular...only to find out that
Romeo was a spy. Pyramus then jumps out the highest tower in penance to end
the play.
Genius. Every potential collegiate scamp should read this edition, for it
has a preface by one of the greatest scholars of our age...none other than
I, Professor Emeritus Johnstone.
Hark, I hear my Biddy calling me to gruel and morning prayers. As Hamlet
said, "Adieu Fair Readers!"

Bitterly,
--Professor Emeritus Percy Q. Johnstone

I think a lot of Shakespeare fans are grateful when a new bio comes out. It seems to revive the strength of the usual authorship assumption. The book gives evidence that the Shakespeares might have been covertly Catholic and on that basis mainly to suggest that William may have got his deep and spectacularly undocumented formal education in Greek, the classics, and other subjects in a clandestine Catholic stronghold where drama was performed. It sounds exciting to suggest that there was something special and secretive going on along these lines in Shakespeare's parental home family; but a lot of English still leaned Catholic back then, naturally enough, since even the previous queen, Elizabeth's sister, was "bloodily" Catholic Mary. I was given Greenblatt's book as a birthday present and did read it carefully, but didn't feel further enlightened by it or even convinced it contained any additional information about his life that bore very certainly or tellingly on Shakespeare as author. The best Shakespeare biographies are the short ones, I think. Three or four pages. Of course, beyond that there's lots to read interestedly about the times and Elizabethan/Jacobean theater. Like other Shakespeare book-length bios, this one isn't likely to much increase your understanding of or appreciation for the brilliant Shakespeare plays.

This is one of the most interesting books that I read last year.

While it is highly speculative it can be entertaining and even in portions insightful. Even though that there is no specific evidence that the Bard was a secret Catholic the events that unfolded around the area where he grew up could indicate this at least circumstantially. Where the book does take liberates I don't think Stephen Greenblatt is being deliberately sloppy he just knows that in terms of subject mater old Will has been done to death and no one is really going to add anything. So why not write something a little more speculative?

Overall-It probably didn't happen but it MIGHT have happened "all the world's a stage and men in their time play many parts"

Not much is known about the life of William Shakespeare. Even though by the seventeenth century England was a record keeping nation, gaps remain in even the most basic reconstructions of Shakespeare's life. The surviving traces of his life are abundant but thin. The decade or more after he presumably finished school, and before he left Stratford for London, are known as the "lost years" because we know virtually nothing about this period of his life. We have no surviving account of the details of his last days, final illness and passing. All points in between, too, are matters of hypothesis and speculation. We have none of his personal letters, none of the books he surely owned. The author, Stephen Greenblatt, a Harvard professor and Shakespeare historian, thus asks us to imagine certain aspects of Shakespeare's life. The book is thus more assumptions about Shakespeare's life than a true biography.

The author succeeds in taking the reader back into the Elizabethan world in which Shakespeare lived. One needed to obtain a coat of arms from inheritance or university education (Oxford or Cambridge) to become a gentleman, which was almost impossible without money. It was a world where the Queen was ex-communicated by the roman Pope, where the Jews were unjustly kicked out of England (by the end of the 13th Century all Jews had been deported from England), where Catholics were publicly and brutally executed, where people died of the bubonic plague, and where women were burnt for the crime of witchcraft and magic. It is a great introduction to that era for those not familiar with it.

There were some amusing parts I really enjoyed. For example, I found myself laughing at the playwright's relationship with Robert Greene (discussed as a chief source for the character of Falstaff). Those passages were really entertaining.

For a man who succeeded in writing such beautiful love prose, it seemed that his life was lacking of love. Shakespeare (1564-1616) was 18 and his wife, Anne Hathaway, 26 when they got married in November of 1582. By the time he was twenty-one he had three children. He married her because she was pregnant. For the times, he was considered to be underage. In most likelihood Shakespeare did not love his wife. He bequeathed her only his "second best bed" in his will, after more than thirty years of marriage!

Were his sonnets written to a male lover? Homosexuality was accepted at the time. Since man was considered superior to women it was not surprising to anyone if men fell in love with each other. It was also the custom at the time that no writer ever wrote love sonnets to his wife. Most writers wrote of the hellish enterprise of marriage. Some, like Francis Bacon, refused to marry.

We learn much about his father. The author analyzes Shakespeare's father's rise and fall as a public figure in Stratford. At one point his father went bankrupt, and his dreams of ever getting the `coat of arms' vanished. However, with Shakespeare's success and fortune, the `coat of arms' was bought.

We learn about Christopher Marlowe, the most prominent playwright of the time, who died in a bar fight at age 30. Some say he might have been a spy. Shakespeare was inspired by his play Tamberlane, and wanted to equal or surpass him. Marlowe was thus an inspiration to Shakespeare.

Surprisingly, actors were seen as whores and vagabonds. Shakespeare wanted to be a gentleman. He paid later for the coat of arms with money earned from his theatre in order to gain the status of gentleman. Costumes were very important and very expensive, and the playwright's most important assets. Actors were allowed to wear them only on stage else be arrested for impersonating gentlemen.

After roughly twenty years in London, Shakespeare finally returned to Stratford and the family he had left behind. His wish was to live with his daughter and her husband, and his grandchild.

Shakespeare was a master at the ability to use words to question power, authority and evil. He had a rich vocabulary and had invented many words. He borrowed a lot from real life and other sources, but his words were unique. He went to court and witnessed executions, held a skull in his hand in a cemetery and wondered who this man could have been and what clothes he wore.

Some suspect that all the works attributed to Shakespeare weren't really by him. However this was not addressed by the author. Greenblatts seems confident of the authenticity of Shakespeare's authorship. (Shakespeare wrote 39 plays that scholars know of between 1590 and 1613 including a play that was lost and 154 sonnets.)

Until his death at the age of 52, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter's Tale. Some of the plays were actually co-authored by other writers.

One reviewer writes the following very enlightening comment I thought I must include: "In the jungles of Yucatan, our mystical guide, Pepe, opined that most, if not all, very successful individuals were visitors from outer space who rose above the strivings of ordinary earthlings because of their extraterrestrial powers. Pepe's explanation is most tempting when one seeks to comprehend how an Elizabethan playwright and poet, Will Shakespeare, so far eclipsed every mere earthling before or since the time he visited our planet. But if one isn't satisfied with Pepe's facile philosophy of greatness, read Stephen Greenblatt's masterful biography, Will in the World. He comes closer than the thousands of previous biographers and commentators to a recreation of Shakespeare in the Elizabethan setting, and his outstanding accomplishment may lead some of us to believe that he, too, is an extraterrestrial."

For Shakespeare, all the world did become a stage!

I have been a Shakespeare scholar since college, and I am 68 Years old. This was the best book about the Bard that I have ever read. The writing is clear, he relates the times to the plays, and his criticisms are cogent.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was the greatest playwright ever to grace the stage and page in the English language; he also remains the most elusive of biographical figures. Biographers who tackle the Bard undertake an exercise in conjecture, for even though by the seventeenth century England was a record-keeping society--the better to busy subsequent scholars--huge gaps remain in even the most basic reconstructions of Shakespeare's life. Greenblatt's subtitle, then, is a misnomer, for we really do not know how Shakespeare became Shakespeare, how a person from a provincial town, a modest family, and no wealth or personal connections, chose his vocation and "wrote the most important body of imaginative literature of the last thousand years" (p. 12).

The exact date of Shakespeare's birth (April 23 or 26?) is debated, and as for his death, we have no surviving account of the details of his last days, final illness and passing. All points in between, too, are matters of hypothesis and speculation. We think we know the name of his Stratford school teacher. The decade or more after he presumably finished school, and before he left Stratford for London, are known as the "lost years" because we know virtually nothing about this period of his life. Was he apprenticed to be a butcher? Did he follow in his father's footsteps as a glove maker? Perhaps he did a stint as a private tutor? Ambiguity qualifies all suggestions. We do know that at age eighteen (November 1582) he married Anne Hathaway, age twenty-six, and by the time he was twenty-one he had three children. Some time after that he left his wife and children and moved to London, although exactly how, when or why we do not know. Similar ignorance clouds our knowledge about his written work. We have, for example, only one manuscript autograph that was written by Shakespeare. Were his 154 sonnets written to a certain gay lover, or to a wider audience of men and women? "There is no way of achieving any certainty," writes Greenblatt, for "no one has been able to offer more than guesses, careful or wild." We have none of his personal letters, none of the books he surely owned, and nothing that is overtly self-revealing in his writings that otherwise revealed more about the complexities of human interiority than any other texts. After roughly twenty years in London, Shakespeare returned to Stratford and the family he had left behind, but even the date of this return is a matter of speculation.

How can we explain the breadth and depth of obscurity that hides even the basics of Shakespeare's life? It might simply be the result of historical accident and chance. Four hundred years is a long time. Perhaps more practical considerations, like avoiding trouble with political and ecclesial authorities, caused him to keep a low profile; to the former playwrights were subversive and to the latter immoral. Still, Greenblatt suggests that in Shakespeare's life and writings there is a deliberate "act of erasure" (p. 255) that prevents us from knowing him.

What Greenblatt does in his book is "to tread the shadowy paths that lead from the life Shakespeare lived into the literature he created" (p. 12). His views on anti-semitism, for example, emerge from consideration of his relationship with Christopher Marlow (who wrote The Jew of Malta) and his own play The Merchant of Venice. The death of his son Hamnet at age eleven and his father elucidate Hamlet and Shakespeare's genius at portraying human interiority and especially "tormented inwardness." King Lear connects with his return to Stratford from London's limelight and the last five years or so when he returned to Stratford and embraced the inevitability of old age, loss of power and identity, and family tensions. Greenblatt also shines in explaining the socio-cultural essentials of the day, such as the emergence of sixteenth century theater in London, the horrible violence that engulfed England as it alternated between Catholic and Protestant royalty, the literary nature of a sonnet to both hide and reveal, and so on. As the founder and leader of the New Historicist movement in literary studies, some have criticized Greenblatt for the notion that literature and art emerge mainly as a construct from society and less from a single individual's effort, the result being that readers learn more about Shakespeare's context than about the writer himself.

Greenblatt, professor of humanities at Harvard and one of the leading Shakespeare scholars today, has written an elegant book about a fascinating figure. Twenty or so color and black and white plates compliment the text.

It's taken me years to read plenty of Shakespeare, and there will probably always be something to read. He is the master of the drama and comedy.

I purchased this book for a dear friends birthday. It not only is a very attractive volume, it is a real bargain. All were very pleased

I was impressed by the value and quality of this book.... Outstanding!!!!

A great book, it includes all the famous plays such at Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, and all of his others. It also includes shakespeares sonnets, which themselves are great. If Shakespeare hadn't written such good plays he'd be famous for his sonnets alone. It is a must have for the drama lover. Or the poetry lover.

William Shakespeare's works make sense out of what it is to be alive. They cover every facet of the human condition, and include some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. Nobody should ever go through life without reading these incredible plays. And this edition is an excellent choice; it's not overpriced, it's thorough and clear; and unlike many collections of Shakespeare's Complete Works, you can pick it up and read it without breaking your arm. Highly, highly recommended.

Well, the book contents are strictly what the cover tells, there are no kind of studies or comments about Shakespeare's works, you will find only the pure texts of each story.
Other negative point of the book is its huge size, what makes the reading feasible probably only inside your house; and the tiny letters, what really handicaps the reading.
If you are not going to read every Shakespeare's work don't buy this book, prefer another one.

Brian Kendig's previous review says it all, but I wanted to add a caveat to a still-potential buyer: the text is so incredibly condensed that the endings of some of the longer lines are scrunched up in awkward brackets in the white space above, making for a disjointed reading of an already unapproachable edition. (Please read the previous review--it's quite helpful.)

I've been using the Folger library series for years now, and although the Norton Critical edition has its place, the Folger edition cannot be beat for clarity and accessibility. Pay the extra couple of bucks for the 5.5 x 8
paperback rather than the smaller mass market paperback. The paper quality and illustrations are far superior in the larger version.

Definitely Shakespeare stays true to his form and creates another literary masterpiece. Just like that of Romeo and Juliet, this is another tragic play. It is set around the early 1600s in England and tells the story of the marriage of Othello, a black man of high standings, and Desdemona, a white lady.

Iago acts as the catalyst for the conflict, trying to disassemble the marriage and Othello and Desdemona. In Shakespeare's dialogue, he uses rather explicit imagery in describing the pair to others to arouse racial prejudice against their marriage. He does all this to get back at Othello for not promoting Iago to a higher position and giving the rank to another soldier. At the climax of the story, the "honest Iago" (yes, I remember this quote quite clearly, as it is mentioned multiple times and is an oxymoron because while everyone believes him to be honest, on the inside he is a clever schemer) successfully convinces Othello that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him.

The story gains its momentum by revolving around the handkerchief which Othello gives to Desdemona.. Iago successfully steals it from her and gives it to Cassio, who thinks another lady has given it to him. When Othello sees the handkerchief in Cassio's hands all the thins Iago says comes back into his head, and he smother Desdemonda killing her.

Shakespeare's play is of a man different from the rest of the people, he is the grey pebble on the sandy shore. This plays into his psyche, making him more susceptible to believe that Desdemona has betrayed him. He also incorporates the settings to his advantage from the more civilized and governed Venice to the island of Cyprus, a place where there is no law. When in Venice, there are no tragedies, all conflicts are resolved through talks and negotiations. However, when they move to Cyprus, the disputes are settled with fighting. The use of nature to determine their motives is another reason why Shakespeare is one of the best writers of his time.

Shakespeare uses the underlying theme of revenge as the basis for his story. It all starts when Othello promotes Cassio to lieutenant rather than Iago, even between Cassio and his own lover, and even extending to Iago and his accomplice, a forlorn man who once wanted Desdemona's hand in marriage. This finally climaxes to Othello and Desdemona. It seems as if the only one who does not take a role in this cycle of revenge is Desdemona. She seems to accept her fate and prays before her death. In the play, she is the most pure of them all.

With Shakespeare's clever banter in Othello and his use of figurative language, he makes this play to be an enjoying one. The story moves quickly and keeps one entranced with Shakespeare's language.

Two words: Read it

Definitely another one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. The plot is just enticing and climatic, with many moments of uniqueness and suspense. Besides the awesome plot, it is the reader's engagement in each character's actions that draw this tragedy closer to every reader.

In these 250 pages, Shakespeare accounts one of humanity's darkest secrets--namely vindication. Othello, the main protagonist, married to a beautiful Desdemona, is a revered Christian Moor and an ingenious general of the armies of Venice. Despite this high status, he is portrayed as an easy prey for Iago, the main antagonist. Having hired the less experienced Cassio as lieutenant, Othello has actually marked the beginning of his downfall. Working with Rodrigo who tries to win Desdemona's favor, Iago undertakes the task of destroying both Othello and Cassio. The remaining plot consists of Iago's numerous attempts, failures and successes. Iago, however, does not immediately resolve to using violence to satisfy his revenge, a decision that might surprise the reader at first. On the contrary, he succeeds to win Othello's trust through his malice, manipulative word choices and ironic statements. With Othello trust as his goal, Iago states, "Men should be what they seem, / Or those that be not, would they might seem none!" Hearing this, Othello would build more trust in Iago, who now seemingly shares the same moral principles of Othello. Using this recently gained trust for his advantage and Othello's ignorance, Iago seeds in Othello the thought of Desdemona's affair with Cassio, an action that is purely part of his machinations. The result is obvious: Othello immediately fires Cassio and hires Iago as the lieutenant for his recompense. However, this does not satisfy the antagonist, as he still has not destroyed Othello. Giving him further "proofs"--for these were merely part of his plan and thus not veritable--Iago establishes feelings of hatred and envy in Othello, who now confesses, "I do not think but Desdemona's honest." Othello's change in attitude is manifested as he calls his wife "the whore of Venice" and then "slaps" her, an act that downgrades her and demonstrates his fury. The plot from here is for you to find out. Although the plot is full of deception and destruction, Shakespeare succeeds in having a happy conclusion for this classic book.

Knowledge of both the location and the era in which this book took place is definitely necessary to understand such terms as "the Moor," "Cyrus...Venice," and the abundant contrasts between "black" and "white." The book is set in the end of the sixteenth century, a period when Turkey tried to invade Venice. Most of the plot takes place in Cyrus, one of the Venetian cities attacked and later conquered by the Turks in 1570. Because of his war backdrop, Othello is referred to as "the general of Venice" throughout the book, amplifying his position as a revered leader in society. Othello's true race, on the other hand, has long been debated by critics. "Moor," nowadays, refers to the Islamic Arabic inhabitants of North Africa. In Shakespeare's time, the term might have either referred to Africans from other regions or tanned Europeans. Shakespeare often mentions "the black Moor," ensuring the addition of skin color in order to differentiate Othello from other Venetians. This difference of skin color, however, is ambiguous and should not be interpreted as a racial discrimination as the modern reader might believe.

Overall, a book that describes an individual's vendetta and ultimate downfall, "Othello" is not only as entertaining as another classical masterpiece of Shakespeare's but also a source where readers can truly fathom what we call today Karma.

The most beautiful aspect of the play is Iago's ingenious deception of Othello. In every phrase, Iago knows just what to say to swing his Moor closer to the belief in Desdemona's infidelity. The subtle strategist to his general (and the puppeteer to Roderigo and Cassio), Iago is in full glory practicing his art of insinuation.

Iago is the master of duplicity: "Divinity of hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows". Here he echoes Banquo in Macbeth: "To win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence". However, while in Macbeth the devious instruments of darkness were netherworldly creatures, here Iago himself takes on devil's work. Treachery plays here the most insidious part: it lays the ground for murder.

Treachery itself takes its roots in hatred. While Richard III and Macbeth are murderers for their own advancement, Iago's guiding star in his hunt is hatred. His "I hate the Moor" at the end of the 1st act, breaking the flow of the soliloquy in which he derides Roderigo (and not unlike Richard III's "Ha!") is the essence of Iago in a line.

The reasons for his hatred are not as clear cut. Iago knows that his being cuckolded by Othello is a mere suspicion (but willfully decides that he does not want to know for sure and will act as if it were true). This is his private (false) excuse for hating Othello. His public one, or at least the one he presents to Roderigo, is having been passed over in the pecking order of military ranking. But he only gives this argument to Roderigo and never repeats it in any soliloquies. And we know how much Iago can be trusted when he speaks to someone else...

His take on Cassio is not much more lucid. Cassio is surely not married, and yet according to Iago, he is "a fellow almost damned in a fair wife" (whether this is one of Shakespearean slips where he forgot to give Cassio a wife or a mutation of "life" into "wife", the phrase is just too beautiful to disregard, even if it does not fit with the text). "He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly" complains Iago of Cassio. He also worries of having been cuckolded by the lieutenant. The former may signify Iago's fear of looking bad in the face of Cassio's promotion (although "daily" and especially "beauty" do not really fit, so the phrase could signify other things and overall seems obscure). The latter suspicion is just preposterous.
So it appears that Iago, whom in this play Shakespeare gave most artful language, is sometimes inconsequential and opaque. While it may not have been Shakespeare's intent, one could conclude from this that hatred may exist for Iago without any real reasons at all. Some people fall in love for no reason, Iago may have fallen in hatred for no reason. Maybe Iago's excuses for his actions are just his awkward attempts at justifying his inexplicable hatred?

In any case, with all his hatred and scheming, Iago is another spectacular Shakespearean villain endowed with inspired language. His art of intrigue ensures him a place among Shakespeare's leading characters (villains for the most part) and will entertain our enduring fascination with human nature's dark side...

The New Folger edition give a much better insight than other publishers of this Shakespearian Play.

This is not the book I ordered--If it was a book for personal reading I would have no problem, but it was ordered for academic purposes.
It did arrive in a timely manner though.

The whole Cambridge series is very valuable. It offers helpful footnotes without cluttering the page, and actually indicates within the text when a footnote will appear. Text appears on right-hand side, and left-hand page offers thoughtful questions and activities to spur engagement, including comprehension and analysis, get-out-of-your-seats and act, and staging/directorial decision-making, and thematic extensions.

"The Taming of the Shrew," by William Shakespeare, is, essentially, about the taming of a shrew. However, in this case, the shrew is in fact a woman, not an animal. The best translation of shrew into modern English is a stubborn, mean woman. About half of the book is about courting, marriage and domesticating Katherine, the shrew. The other half is about Bianca, Katherine's sister, and her dozen suitors.

Being written by Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" is well regarded in academic eyes. This fame is not entirely deserved. The play is blessedly short, but lacks a solid plot. What plot the story contains is throughly confused by how indistinguishable the characters are. Two thirds of the cast's names end in `io,' making it almost impossible to tell them apart. The theme of male domination is adequately achieved throughout the book. In the end, man triumphs over woman, but has not succeeded entirely in domesticating her. This play is far less amusing than the rest of Shakespeare's works, for they contain a mostly understandable plot.

OK, I know I'm going to get hammered for this; once again, there goes my reviewer rating. But I just HAVE to be honest: this is a terrible story. OK, being that it's Shakespeare, it's prettily told, but it's still a HORRIBLE story, and I can't imagine why otherwise sensible people like it. Perhaps they feel that Shakespeare is telling it tongue-in-cheek (it IS a comedy, after all) and poking fun at the system of fathers marrying off their daughters without any concern for whether they want it or not; that would almost make it tolerable, if I could believe it. But given that it IS a Shakespearean comedy, we must assume that the ending is supposed to be a "happy" one, and the situation at the end is far from pleasant. Or perhaps people believe (I've heard this claimed in all seriousness) that Kate has actually "triumphed" at the end, having figured out how to manipulate Petruchio so as to get her way subtly and underhandedly. Even if this were true, I'd hardly consider it a "happy" ending, and personally, I see little evidence of it.

No, what we actually have here is a story of a strong woman (some people seem to like it simply because there IS a strong woman to be found in it) being married against her will to a scheming golddigger who "Tames" her by blatent if indirect spousal abuse (he doesn't beat her, simply starves her and sleep-deprives her, as well as forcing her to wear muddy rags until she behaves exactly as he wants, up to and including winning him a bet by lecturing her contemporaries on their duties as obedient wives.) Her spirit may or may not be broken, depending on how the part is played, but the fact remains that she's forced to BEHAVE as if it is, and that's not a message that should be bruited about in a "comedy". This is absolutely the WORST of Shakespeare's plays.

Unlike any other Shakespeare's plays, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW has an induction, which lives up to its name in the sense that the prologue scene does indeed lead into the play that follows. It seems likely that Shakespeare had adopted the device from medieval narrative poetry, where it was extensively used to introduce a story in the form of a dream. In the induction, far more is involved than the mere setting of a scene and the informing to audience. In fact, Christopher Sly seems to have lapse into a dream as he is forced to adopt a new identity. The brief yet vigorous altercation between Sly and the hostess with which the induction begins is a curtain raiser for the dramatic struggle between Petruchio and Katherina that is to follow. Equally as significant is the Lord's instructions to his servant-boy as to the behavior he is to assume when he appears disguised as Sly's wife forebode the main theme of the play.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW has a powerful appeal for the Elizabethan audience at the time it opened because the struggle for mastery in a marriage remained a fact of existence and hot topics for writers. A true-to-life domestic scene opens the play and instantly grasps attention: Signor Baptista forbids all suitors to court his younger daughter Bianca until he finds a husband for the ill-tempered, difficult, and waspish elder daughter Katherina. She is notorious for her hot temper, foul tongue, and caprice. Out of jealousy and the qualm not remaining single, she often vents out her anger on her sister. Suitors of the younger sister, who decide to put aside their rivalry, contrive to find a match for Katherina.

Gremio and Hortensio bear the cost of Petruchio's courting Katherina while Lucentio, who is madly in love with Bianca, and his crafty servant Tranio cunningly switch role to infiltrate the Baptista house. What inevitably follows is a facetious pursuit of love and a farcical melodrama that culminate in a riotously funny final scene in which Lucentio's real father, who has no clue of his son's betrothal, confronts the pedant-disguised impostor who reverse-accuses him of a charlatan. Equally as clueless of the entire crafty scheme is Baptista whom the suitors have tricked and outmaneuvered. He is consistently mistaken about everything and everybody, so that he does not even understand why Bianca later asks for his forgiveness. He and Vincentio are merely the butts for all the intrigues that go on throughout the play.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW maintains an irresistible appeal among the comedies owing to the intriguing trickery with which characters rival for courtship. Just as suspenseful and entertaining is Petruchio's calculated, punctilious campaign to tame his wife. His line of attack is psychological, although persuasive words carefully planned for each step accompany his actions. He somehow outsmarts his wife and deliberately outdoes her in his perversity and bad temper. The quintessential spleen of tantrum flourishes in the scenes in which Petruchio abuses his servants and tailor. His being abusive, tyrannical, violent, and capricious functions more than a reflection - it is evident of a caricature of Katherina through an exaggerated parody of her wild behavior. His evaluation of her mind is confirmed by her softening and surrender for she welcomes the opportunity of meeting an antagonist who will put up a good fight.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is highly rhetorical (even more so than AS YOU LIKE IT). Whether it is Petruchio's aggressive, vituperative taming or the milder courting of Bianca, the play never lacks an elite style with which Shakespeare exploited language to a linguistic virtuosity. For example, Petruchio's taming distinguishes from the usual method that might involve violence. What differentiate his campaign are the subtlety, the sophistication, and the ingenuity of his conceiving of Katherina's mind. His perspicacious mind justifies the use of highly rhetorical, puny, and literary discourse that somehow alienates the ordinary speech in the play and paradoxically brings in a fuller, more intimate possession of his witty scheme.

I found this book to be overly long and in need of some professional editing. It just seemed to go on and on and on and not really go anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. But what was even more bothersome to me were the technical issues with the Kindle version.

Graphics were used for the chapter titles and an incorrect file format was used (JPG, should have been GIF or PNG). By using a JPG on this type of graphic file and then overly compressing said file, you get a lot of visible artifacting which makes the image look dirty/grungy.

I don't know how the "typesetting" was done for this e-book, but many characters are cut off/mangled almost like it was a bad scan of poorly printed text. Thinking it might have been a display issue, I tried it at varying levels of text size and each size showed the same issues. And then, even in the same sentence, text goes from subscript to superscript to somewhere in-between to normal placement.

There are really no good reasons as to why these technical problems made it into production. If you're picky about stuff like this, you'll want to pass on this book (and yes, some people can't get past technical problems to enjoy any book).

Well, Martin has done it again. As with Back Bay, he has once again produced another can't wait to find out what happened next page turner.I am looking forward to reading The Constitution.

Who would have thought William Shakespeare has a historical presence in America? Only William Martin could spin such a creative tale, with relationships spanning the centuries. Like his other novels, HARVARD YARD blends outstanding historical fact with compelling fiction that leads to another "Wow!" in every chapter.

One of the most impressive things about the author is his ability to take a famous figure and smoothly blend him/her into the action, if only in a brief, passing moment that moves the story along smoothly. HARVARD YARD is no exception, as one of the institution's most famous alumni makes a key cameo.

This book had great reviews as did the author so I thought I'd give it a try. Starting off well, it soon becomes mired in the development of the characters who lived in earlier days and their lives. The mystery and significance of the Shakespeare work becomes minor as we follow the Puritans and Unitarians and abolishonists and feminists. Soon the chapters dealing with the past are 3 times longer than the ones dealing with Peter's life in the present, and that's where he lost me. Granted, parts of the story in the early days of Harvard and prior to the Revolutionary War are well done and the characters very deeply developed, they will of course all be dead and gone by the time Fallon gets his clues about the play, so it's a bit pointless. Does the fact that these people were involved with the early colonies and religious and social changes have anything to do with the moving along of the story of the mystery of the hidden book? No! So, it's way too long, too focused on the lives of the Wedges long dead, and little is left for the living characters and the "real" story I was hoping for.

I enjoyed Back Bay even if the ending of the book left something to be desired. So, I decided to purchase Harvard Yard. I liked the characters in Back Bay and the relationships that were established. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Harvard Yard to find that Mr. Martin had decided to jump 25 years from the last book and now have Peter in his late 40's. I don't want to give away too much, but let us just say that I was not expecting to start reading about an almost 50 year old Indian Jones. I wanted to watch Peter and the rest of the characters grow and instead found them already "grown" and in new phases of their lives.

Had I known this, I would never have purchased the book. I would have liked to have seen this series continue for a long time to come, but if Mr. Martin is going to age his characters by so many years each time we get a new book they will be in their 70's by the time the next book comes around.

It just seemed that there was so much Mr. Martin could have developed from Back Bay and instead decided to mature his characters too quickly. I was less than thrilled and not interested in purchasing any more books in this series.

Of course Shakespeare's TEMPEST is an enchanting--and enchanted--play, but my comments here concern the DOVER THRIFT EDITION of the play. Dover is to be commended for making texts such as these affordable for readers on a budget. However, students and teachers alike should note that the Dover edition does not supply line numbers. Students who are considering this text for a class and may have to write about it will not be able to cite specific line numbers as is convention (Act.scene.lines; e.g., 3.1.34-47). Professors and teachers should also be aware of this limitation and weigh it against the affordability of this text.

I have my degree in English... I like reading and teaching with this version as "help" not as a substitution. It gives a clearer understanding to Shakespeare for people who have difficulty with it.

I bought this copy admittedly because the magical artwork on the cover drew me towards this edition. I admit that it is shallow but I am very glad I ended up picking this one because it contains a wealth of information that is so perfect for helping students understand the context, background, themes and ideas contained within this beautifully written play.

Shakespeare is always difficult for us young people, but I can easily promise anyone that this edition does a fine job of explaining the play and it definately helps the reader to gain a better understanding of the play so you are prepared to go into an exam and write about it for two hours with the conviction that you will yield good results.

The Tempest is rightly regarded as being one of the Bard's greatest works, containing some of his deepest thoughts on the nature of power and the relationship between rational man as controller of nature, and the animal man always to be at the mercy of the passions both of himself, others, and the world around him. In fact, this play could be thought of as representing Shakespeare's final and definitive statement on topics that he had explored throughout his cannon. But profound as the philosophy is, and despite the beauty of the poetry and the many magical elements contained within the play, the fact is that as far as the average attention lacking teenager is concerned, not a lot happens. This is why this Cambridge schools edition scores over most others. It is almost entirely activity focused, the expressed aim being to 'bring the play to life'. With at least one suggested activity beside each page of Shakespeare's text (as well as a decent amount of background notes and interpretation), every teacher armed with this book should be able to enthuse his charges with the very real relevance of this play to the world which we have bequeathed them.

I recently re-read THE TEMPEST prior to attending The Colorado Shakespeare Festival's performance of this play under the summer stars here in Boulder. Shakespeare (1564-1616) produced this emotionally-moving, poetic romance at the end of his career, in 1611, and published it in the First Folio in 1623. In fact, it was his last play.

It tells the story of Prospero, the exiled duke of Milan, and his beautiful daughter, Miranda, who have been stranded for twelve years on a desert island with two servants, the airy sprite Ariel (who Prospero rescued from being imprisonment in a tree) and the savage Caliban. Upon learning that his usurping brother Antonio is sailing near the island with the Neopolitan King Alonso's party, he uses his magic powers to conjure a sea storm that not only leaves the ship and its passengers wrecked on the island, but which also sparks a courtship between his daughter and the king's son, Ferdinand. The survivors of the wreck are separated into several groups, believing one another dead. Three subplots then alternate through the play. In one, Caliban befriends two drunken crew members, whom he believes to have come from the moon, and drunkenly attempts to raise is own rebellion against Prospero. In another, Prospero works to establish the romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda. In the third subplot, Ariel thwarts a murder plot at Prospero's command.

The shipwrecked passengers are eventually reunited by island spirits to discover the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand. In the end, as its title suggests, THE TEMPEST is as much about the opening scene's violent storm, as the journey that brought Prospero to the island and the psychological storm--"the sea change"--leading him to quit his magic and his remote island to return to Milan.

G. Merritt

"The scholarship is surpassing---brave, original, full of surprise,---and in the hands of so gifted a writer it FAIRLY LIGHTS UP THE SKY."
- David McCullough, noted historian
[from the back jacket of the book]

This is not a 'scholarly work.' It is a considerable and exhaustive supply of sound and fury, all of it signifying nothing. If one simply takes time to closely examine the host of Elizabethan records and books concerning Shakespeare and Oxford, the merits of Ogburn's brazen conjectures plummet like a stone.

I will not delve too deeply into the debate here (for that, see instead my review of Alan Nelson's "Monstrous Adversary: the Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford"), but I will poke a few holes in Ogburn's research:

1. Contrary to Ogburn's claim that the name "Shake-speare" is unique in its hyphenation and thus must be a pseudonym, many English surnames--including such mundane ones as Campbell and Waldgrave--were often hyphenated.

2. George Puttenham did call Oxford "the best for comedy among us." He also listed several other obscure names under this same category, and only a few lines later, mentions an entirely separate author named Shakespeare as the best for both tragedy and comedy.

3. The Stratford Monument always depicted a writer and was never dedicated to a grain merchant. Poems as early as Leonard Digges' 1623 tribute to the Bard call him a poet and friend and reference "thy Straford moniment." The only source for Ogburn's erroneous claims about the Monument is William Dugdale's illustration of the bust, drawn in 1656, over 30 years after Digges' poem. Dugdale was even commended by others for depicting the monument of the great poet Shakespeare, and it is worth noting that many of the monuments he transcribed are done so inaccurately.

5. Augustine Phillips, in the spring of 1605, bequeathed a sum of gold to one "William Shakespeare," never mind that Oxford was a year dead by then and never knew Phillips, nor did the Earl know either Heminges or Condell, the two actors named in Shakespeare's will who later edited the First Folio.

6. When Ogburn mentioned the "Operation Clean Sweep" needed to conceal Oxford's authorship, I went into convulsive fits of laughter. Ogburn thinks that conspirators erected the Stratford Monument, published the First Folio, and even succeeded in destroying fictional letters related to Oxford's literary interests (thus leaving us only with a host of the Earl's letters, 1/4 of which are laborious discussion of the tin-mining industry). Furthermore, if any reader is familiar with Stephen May's "Renaissance Papers," they will know that the 'stigma of print' that was the alleged motivation behind Oxford's concealment is a fictional creation crafted by those who know little about Elizabethan politics and poetry.

7. Ogburn says that the death of Shakespeare in 1616 "went entirely unremarked." It was, save for a considerable number of poetic tributes (including one by William Basses that includes the line "William Shakespeare, he died in April 1616"), the erection of the Stratford Monument, and the rapid assembly and publication of the First Folio. Oxford's death, on the other hand, DID go entirely unremarked. No will, no eulogies, no monument, nothing.

8. Ogburn weaves many blatant myths, which incorporate strands such as William Cecil's nickname "Polus" (for which there is no evidence; Oxfordians obviously have not read much of Gabriel Harvey), and a "contemporary" account of Edmund Spenser's funeral that does not even exist.

9. Ogburn, an amateur historian, ridicules super-scholar E.K. Chambers for his interpretation of Chettle's "Kind-Harts Dreame," which is vigorously researched and involuntarily harmful to Oxford's candidacy.

10. Ogburn desperately tries to paint William of Stratford as a man of no learning, never mind his almost-certain attendance at the rigorous King's New School in Stratford. If one reads Alan Nelson's "Monstrous Adversary" biography, they will discover that Oxford--so frequently referenced by Ogburn as a man of tremendous learning--was never a dedicated student, and all of his degrees are honorary. His spelling habits and clumsy grammar reflect a wholesale lack of learning on the Earl's part.

In short, Ogburn's book is an arrogant, misinformed attempt to alter the authorship of Shakespeare. He offers not a shred of solid evidence, and often contrives things to better support his weak case. To turn one of his own arguments against him: Oxfordianism is like Creationism, built upon fantasy and absurdity; Stratfordianism is like Science, well-researched, flexible, and entirely believable.

It's funny that this book would be described as non-scholarly, when in fact the Foreward is written by one of the great living history scholars, David McCullough, who wrote the best sellers JOHN ADAMS, TRUMAN, and GREAT BRIDGE. And what is McCullough's verdict on this book?

"[T]his brilliant, powerful book is a major event for everyone who cares about Shakespeare. The scholarship is surpassing--brave, orginal, full of surprise--and in the hands of so gifted a writer it fairly lights of the sky."

That is a real scholar's judgment on the scholarship in this book. Enjoy. It is one of the best and addictive mysteries ever written.

Read this book, and a couple more. The Truth Will Out, by Brenda James - who claims that Sir Henry Neville wrote the plays, and Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I by Paul Streitz.

Then ponder this. Elizabeth was highly sexed - had an extraordinary upbringing - for example her father publicly killed her mother - and lived in extraordinary times, when neither she nor her advisors wanted her to marry. It was in EVERYBODY's interest in England that she did not marry - which in those days would mean staying a virgin. The state at that time had extraordinary powers, and censorship was a basic part of the control of the state.

Did she have children? I think so. Three of her children were probably Oxford - born 1549?, Neville (Shakespeare) born 1563? and Southampton born 1573. All three had red or auburn hair as far as I know - curly too! Like Elizabeth and Henry VIII. All three children are strongly connected to Nevilles, and to Cecil - who controlled everything - Oxford married Cecil's daughter. All three were really well educated, and Oxford and Neville did the European tour. Neville spent four years on the continent with Sir Henry Saville, top Oxford Scholar, visiting all the places mentioned in the plays. Neville was really fat in middle age, like Henry VIII. His friends called him Falstaff. The first line of Ben Jonsons two page dedicatory poem to him in the first folio of Shakespeare's works that he put together in 1623 is "To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name" To Draw No Envy? No NV. Ne Ville - get it? Neville sometimes signed himself Ne Ville.