Shakespeare category: 1671 books

Twelfth Night tells a twisted tale of mistaken identity, transformation and deception. With a man playing a girl disguised as a boy, illusion and reality are almost indistinguishable on Propeller’s island of Illyria. Dark and delightful, the play questions what happens when you fall in love with the wrong person, and the answer is both beautiful and bittersweet.

This is Shakespeare's last dramatic work. The two noble kinsmen are cousins who swear a vow of friendship until death. King Theseus of Athens leads an invasion against Thebes and returns to Athens with the two cousins who both fall in love with Princess Emilia Theseus' sister-in-law. Both become...

Shakespeare's valedictory play is also one of his most poetical and magical. The story involves the spirit Ariel, the savage Caliban, and Prospero, the banished Duke of Milan, now a wizard living on a remote island who uses his magic to shipwreck a party of ex-compatriots.

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It is based on the life of King Henry V of England, and focuses on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded...

Shakespeare's immutable history of Henry's victory over the French at Agincourt and the subsequent peace between the two nations is also a study of war and kingship. From a wild youth, Henry comes to embody all of the kingly virtues: courage, justice, integrity and honour. Ironically these qualities...

By the time depicted in this play, Henry has turned into the greatest of English kings. Though he has retained the common touch and sense of humor he showed as Falstaff's bosom buddy in the two parts of Henry IV, he has become fiercely focused. He punishes those who have plotted against him; in battle...

Among the most studied, read, and admired works in world literature, Shakespeare's histories are unmatched for their dramatic brilliance, beauty of language, and profundity of thought. This convenient and affordable volume — ideal for students and lovers of literature — features four of the playwright's...

Believed to have been written in 1599, William Shakespeare’s “Henry V” forms the final installment of a tetralogy of plays which includes “Richard II”, “Henry IV, Part I”, and “Henry IV, Part II”. The play focuses on the events surrounding the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred...

Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Martius Coriolanus.Coriolanus was largely based on the Life of Coriolanus as it was described in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans and Livy's Ab Urbe condita. Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cymbeline is a play by William Shakespeare, based on an early Celtic British King. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify it as a romance. Like Othello, Measure for Measure, and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While its...

A tightly constructed drama which is regarded as one of the William Shakespeare’s finest; “Othello” is the story of its titular character, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. Othello secretly marries Desdemona, the daughter of Venetian senator Brabantio, who disapproves of the union. The marriage...

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself, a brave warrior, is fatally impelled by supernatural forces, by his proud wife,...

One of the last tragedies written by William Shakespeare, “Coriolanus” is the story of the legendary 5th century BC Roman general Caius Martius, later given the honorary name Coriolanus. Based largely on the biographical accounts of Plutarch and Livy, the play opens amongst riots over grain in...

A triumphantly patriotic play that also casts a critical eye at war and warriors, this great epic drama depicts a charismatic ruler in a time of national struggle. The young King Henry’s victory over the French despite overwhelming odds creates a spectacle of action, color, and thundering battles....