In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that...... more

interest in all things Scottish, and Shakespeare turned to Scottish history for material. He found a spectacle of violence and...... more

Shakespeare series for students and general readers.In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young...... more

notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play s famous...... more

text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading...... more

books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Barbara A. Mowat The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is...... more

. The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her...... more

A bestselling, beautifully designed edition of William Shakespeare’s sonnets and poems, complete with valuable tools...... more

turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar s death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians. Renaissance writers...... more

interest in all things Scottish, and Shakespeare turned to Scottish history for material. He found a spectacle of violence and...... more

for students and general readers.Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a...... more

The authoritative edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used...... more

Shakespeare creates powerful drama from a marriage between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona that begins...... more

night after Christmas, the end of the Christmas season, Twelfth Night plays with love and power. The Countess Olivia, a...... more

conveniently linked to the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases -An...... more

series for students and general readers.In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The play draws us to...... more

series for students and general readers.Shakespeare’s Richard II presents a momentous struggle between Richard II and his...... more

Essay by Barbara A. Mowat The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of...... more

play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key...... more

at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar’s death at the hands of friends and...... more

In The Merchant of Venice, the path to marriage is hazardous. To win Portia, Bassanio must pass a test prescribed by...... more

A bestselling, beautifully designed edition of William Shakespeare s sonnets, complete with valuable tools for...... more

In The Merchant of Venice, the path to marriage is hazardous. To win Portia, Bassanio must pass a test prescribed by...... more

Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for...... more

Bertram. As a ward to the French king, he must remain at court while his friends go off to war and glory. When Helen cures the...... more

scholars have also grounded the play in the issues of its time. These include primogeniture, passing property from a father to...... more

The authoritative edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night from The Folger...... more

them a king) withdraw from the world for three years, taking an oath that they will have nothing to do with women. The King...... more

is pardoned. Shakespeare bases his story on Plautus s Menaechmi, a play about identical twins who accidentally meet after...... more

elevates plebeians to a status equal with his family and class, to Rome s great disadvantage. He risks his political career to...... more

Pericles tells of a prince who risks his life to win a princess, but discovers that she is in an incestuous...... more

In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The play draws us to identify with Richard and his fantasy...... more

play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare s...... more

Titus Andronicus is the earliest tragedy and the earliest Roman play attributed to Shakespeare. Titus, a model Roman...... more

Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire. The future first...... more

Mistress Ford s jealous husband and a visiting knight, Sir John Falstaff. Merry wives, jealous husbands, and predatory knights...... more

The real Timon of Athens lived there in the fifth century BCE, making him a contemporary of Socrates and Pericles...... more

Henry IV, Part 2 is the only Shakespeare play that is a sequel, in the modern sense, to an earlier play of his. Like...... more

think of them as boys, leaving home for the first time. One has a crush on a girl, Julia, though he hasn t yet told her...... more

-- combined here with a bonus DVD of a performance of Macbeth recorded before a rapt audience in the Folger s intimate Elizabethan...... more

Henry VI, Part 3 is dominated by a struggle between two military forces, neither of which can achieve victory for long...... more

Henry VI, Part 2 presents a kind of story that was popular before Shakespeare began writing, tracing the fall of...... more

nationalism that contrasts the English with the French, portrayed here as effeminate and scheming. A boy king, Henry VI, is on the...... more

guide to further reading Essay by Barbara A. Mowat The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world s...... more

Like most of Shakespeare s history plays, King John presents a struggle for the English crown. The struggle this time...... more

Shakespeare s Richard II presents a momentous struggle between Richard II and his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. Richard is...... more

, with Henry in despair because Hal lives a dissolute life. The father-son pair of Hotspur (Lord Henry Percy) and his father...... more