Each edition includes: - Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play - Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play - Scene-by-scene plot summaries - A key to famous lines and phrases - An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language - An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play - Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare...

30-Minute Shakespeare plays three action-packed scenes from this tale of King Navarre and his three lords, who have vowed to retire from women for three years. Naturally, the Princess of France and her three ladies arrive, and comedic courtship ensues. The cutting includes the ridiculous dance of the lords disguised as Russians, the hysterical "Pageant of the Nine Worthies," and a dramatic, bittersweet ending that leaves the King and the three lords...

Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed 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 fellow politicians. Renaissance writers disagreed over the assassination, seeing Brutus, a leading conspirator, as either hero or villain. Shakespeare's play keeps this debate alive.

Cruel Angelo is left in charge of Vienna when the Duke pretends to leave town. Angelo revives an old law against fornication and sentences Claudio to death for seducing Juliet, Claudio's betrothed. Claudio's sister, Isabella, pleads for his life and Angelo offers to spare him in exchange for her virginity. Angelo's corruption and severity are punished when the Duke reveals that he has witnessed it all.

Shakespeare loved to use the device of mistaken identity, and nowhere does he use this convention more skilfully than in Twelfth Night. Viola, surviving a shipwreck, walks ashore at Illyria, and immediately embarks on a gambit to allow her to make her way in a world of men. Dressed as a man, Viola, now Cesario, insinuates herself into the service of the Duke of Illyria, Orsino. Orsino longs for the love of a neighbouring countess, Olivia , who as...

Prospero, exiled on an enchanted island with his daughter Miranda, raises a magical tempest to wash ashore a ship carrying the enemies who usurped his dukedom years ago -- his brother Antonio and Alonso, the king of Naples. Alonso's son Ferdinand is feared dead but has washed to another part of the island, where he meets and falls in love with Miranda. Prospero punishes the usurpers and regains his dukedom, as Miranda gains a royal husband.