Donald Richardson: 55 books
by Donald Richardson
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 2014
Thomas is not so much the doubter he is traditionally labeled as being as he is a thinker. He needs to make sense of things. Hes the kid in the classroom that always has his hand raised and lies awake at night trying to resolve things that dont quite fit preconceived patterns. Hes the man that always...
The Complete Merry Wives of Windsor
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: April 12, 2017
One critic of the Merry Wives of Windsor argues that no longer does Shakespeare endow the fat knight [Falstaff] with the nimble wit that enabled him in the earlier plays to extricate himself from every embarrassing situation (Wright, xii). The result is a fast-paced farce (Green, Introduction, lxiv)...
The Complete Third Part of Henry Vi
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: February 9, 2018
One recurrent criticism of The Third Part of HVI, is its cavalier disregard for chronology and historical events. However, Lawrence V. Ryan argues that the disjointing of time . . . enables him [Shakespeare] to achieve striking dramatic and didactic effects (xxx). Thus, one is enjoined to remember...
by Donald Richardson
Language: English
Release Date: November 16, 2017
Language: English
Release Date: November 16, 2017
Detective fiction is said to have begun in 1841 with Edgar Allan Poes The Murders in the Rue Morgue. There are antecedents to Poe, but Poe is the progenitor for most Americans. The genre continues to this day with writers like Sue Grafton producing a whole series of books featuring private detective...
The Complete Second Part of Henry Vi
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: October 18, 2017
The role of prophecy is . . . central in 2 Henry VI, in that it gives to the play a dominant pattern of prediction and eventual fulfillment (Bevington). This pattern isnt satisfied, however, as a result of King Henrys lackadaisical style. Throughout the play, it is clear that Henry is ineffectual...
The Complete Pericles, Prince of Tyre
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: September 26, 2016
Even though most Shakespearean scholars argue that Pericles is not entirely the work of Shakespeare, similar to The Winters Tale, it continues to attract playgoers. Shipwreck, famine, and other disasters punctuate this wondrous tale, in which a knight in rusty armor fights for his true love and a...
The Complete Troilus and Cressida
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: March 7, 2016
Troilus and Cressida retells the epic story of the Iliad, but with an altered focus. The tale of these lovers (and Pandarus) was told earlier by both Homer and Geoffrey Chaucer. In Shakespeare, however, the epic proportions are reduced to the quotidian details of human passion, including quarrels...
The Complete Timon of Athens
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: February 21, 2017
Timon of Athens might be regarded as the ancestor of Molieres Les Misanthropein that Alceste seems to embody all the negativity of Timon. Timon also illustrates the error of equating friendship with finances. He finds that his idealization of friendship has been an illusion (Mowat, xiv). He is, thus,...
The Complete Cymbeline
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: August 3, 2016
Cymbeline repeats many of Shakespeares plot devices: villainous slander, homicidal jealousy, cross-gender disguise, a deathlike trance, the appearance of Jupiter in a vision, and final repentance, forgiveness, and reunion (Mowat, xiii), all of which result in an improbable story (Mowat, xv). As a...
Complete Reign of King Edward the Third
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: October 16, 2018
Proudfoot and Bennett remind us that “the authorship of Edward III remains speculative” (89). However, they continue, “The circumstantial case for Shakespeare has sufficient dimensions to be persuasive, especially the relation of Edward III to Shakespeare’s early non-dramatic and dramatic...
The Complete Winter’S Tale
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: December 12, 2015
Blind rage underlies Leontes jealousy in The Winters Tale. Although his jealously is akin to Othellos, it is not carried out to the same extent, thanks to the oracles pronouncement. While Leontess change of heart strains credibility, he does redeem himself and, in the process, changes the tragedy...
The Complete King John
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: May 17, 2016
King John is quite problematic. As the ending is not a satisfying resolution, the audience is left without a sense of completion. It appears everything is left up in the air, unlike the satisfying endings of Lear, Macbeth, or even Hamlet in all of which it is clear that the world will go on despite...
Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Poems
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2019
Neither Venus and Adonis nor the Rape of Lucrece is widely read. Both poems were quite popular during Shakespeare’s time, however, and each gives promise of future development of the playwright’s later skills. Still, as the Riverside Shakespeare says, “Venus and Adonis . . . is an Ovidian poem...
The Complete Titus Andronicus
An Annotated Edition of the Shakespeare Play
Language: English
Release Date: August 27, 2016
Titus Andronicus, like Hamlet, is a revenge tragedy but one that focuses on violence and horror[;] . . . its mood is one of revulsion (Bevington, Introduction). Despite parallels between Aaron and Iago and between Titus and Lear, the play extends the genre of revenge tragedy and becomes one of unremitting...