Product Description

This single-volume edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare includes commissioned introductions to each of the plays and poems by a team of academics, including John Jowett and Philip Hobsbaum, with a textual introduction by the Shakespearean scholar Alec Yearling explaining the significance of the Alexander edition. This volume also includes a biography of Shakespeare by Germaine Greer and an introduction to Shakespeare's theatre by Anthony Burgess.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #403632 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Review
'A symbol in the history of our national culture' - The Guardian

About the Author
The mystery of Shakespeare's rise to literary eminence is demonstrated by the fact that his suspected parents were illiterate. He was born on April 23rd 1564, and of the years that intervened between his christening and his appearance on the London stage, nothing is known. He must have gone at least to dame school, and from the age of six or seven to the King's New Grammar School. In the lower school he would have studied Latin. In the upper school he would have studied rhetoric and logic, Cicero, Quintilian, Ovid, Virgil and Horace and have begun the study of Greek. These studies were all the literary training that any Elizabethan poet received. In the 1590s there was no profession of letters. Poetry was practised as an accomplished pastime by gentlemen and scholars. It is therefore impossible to document with certainty Shakespeare's development from his birth to the publication of his poem Venus and Adonis in 1593. The only documented event in these years is the rather unconventional marriage of William Shakespeare, aged eighteen with Anne Hathaway, an heiress, six or seven years older and pregnant. The only other documentation we have before 1592 relates to the children Anne bore William; Susanna in May 1583, and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen, and produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. On April 23rd 1616, aged 52 years to the day, Shakespeare died and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Customer Reviews

wonderful
This book represents a wonderful opportunity to enjoy shakesperare for those whose mother tongue is not english. The effort put in the edition is clearly shown form the very first page, also the introductory notes on each play.
However, I would have liked to find longer and deeper comments on the plays and footnotes really on their footpage, rather than at the very end of the book, that makes it more complicated to follow.
However, it can be recommended to anyone who likes literature in the original.
Shakespeare has and will always be a pleasure to read

Thou hast produced a work of purest beauty!
After my experience of Shakespeare at school I was very disillusioned with Shakespeare. Now that I am older I wanted to try and revisit Shakespeare to see if age had changed me. That is where this book comes in. It is cheap and so you have the feeling you are buying a bargain. The book also provides good introductions to Shakespeare and the context of his life and the plays he wrote. This prepares you for Shakespeare's actual plays in a way that gives them meaning for modern contemporary society. All his plays of which are included in this book. This book turned a Shakespeare doubter into somebody who now enjoys his works. Buy it or risk not having lived your life to the full.

Outstanding!
When I received the Complete Works of William Shakespeare for my birthday from my Great Aunt I was initially intimidated by a combination of its size, bulk and the plethora of footnotes present on a given page. I pondered: When would I ever actually use such a mammoth text?, and resolved to keep it on the shelf as a symbol of my cultured self! However one day, upon returning from my school, I was appalled to realise that I had forgotten my edition of "Much Ado About Nothing" and had an exam on it the following day. In desperation I searched for notes and passages on the Internet but, alas, with no tangible results. Suddenly I remembered the Complete works of William Shakespeare and hauled it down with much doubt in my mind. I scanned the frightfully long table of contents without enthusiasm and turned my page to Act 1 Scene 1. Upon scanning the first couple of scenes I was immediately struck by the concise, intelligent and informative footnotes which seemed to compel me onwards rather than provide for a halting reading of the play as did my personal edition of the play. The added text by the authors and editors provided me with a substantial analysis of the key themes of the play and even gave instances in which each underlying theme is revealed in the actions and lines of the characters. I came into the testing room confident the next day and scored top marks in my class for our test (which included, paraphrasing, analysing key themes and an in class five paragraph essay). I am so impressed by this collection that I no longer bother to bring Shakespeare home with me from school as this edition provides me with a more than sufficient, if not generally more thorough, presentation of each of his works. I highly recommend this excellent collection.