William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays in One Sitting

by Joelle Herr

Oversized mini book packed with witty summaries of the plays of William Shakespeare, a man widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. A Midsummer Night's Dream , Romeo and Juliet , Henry V , and all of the Shakespearan classics are efficiently organized into comedies, tragedies, and histories. This compact tome is perfect for either digesting small bites of information or devouring in one sitting. It features synopses, character profiles, and illustrations certain to entertain both novices and Shakespeare lovers alike.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Shakespeare, Plays, Reference, Humor, Drama

328 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2012

About the author

When I'm not committing various sacrilegious acts (literarily speaking) with and to the works of Dickens, Twain, Joyce, Shakespeare, and other greats, I have the best day job in the world--owning and running Her Bookshop, an independent bookstore in East Nashville, Tennessee.

Reviews

[Prasad GR · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute little overview of all the plays, with tongue firmly in cheek. This booklet can be both an introduction for the uninitiated and a refresher for those wanting to return to Shakespeare's fold. And it does full justice by kindling in us a desire to read the real thing and not be satisfied with the summary. And this is in part due to the jarring editorial errors, which is primarily the reason for three stars only.

[carys · Rating 4 out of 5]

former stem kid discovers shakespeare not clickbait

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent way of sampling Shakespeare's plays.

[Stefani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got a copy at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. I wanted a souvenir and a book and this little book is kinda both. It's a cool little book to keep in your purse and pull out to show you're a well read person and intellectual. It includes summaries of all of Shakespeare's plays and it's nice to read them before you choose the full play you want to read. Some of the summaries were a bit confusing though. I think it could've been done a bit better. nice illustrations. Overall, it was a lovely little volume :)

[Barrita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otra miniatura que cabe en una mano, pero esta vez tiene la gracia de que si cuenta con detalles de todas las obras del tío Shakespeare. Incluye una ilustracion, citas y resumen de cada una.

Me parece que los resúmenes podrían ser mejores, pero cumplen con su función de mostrar una ventanita al mundo del bardo. El libro es obviamente una curiosidad, pero puede ser una introducción a las obras para alguien que tenga la espinita, un regalo para quién las estudia o quizá alguien que las ama como lector, actor o similares.

El plus es que se ve precioso en el librero.

[Kate Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tiny edition contains a brief summary of all of Shakespeare's plays, featuring main character descriptions, interpretation drawings and famous quotations from each play. To help distinguish between the different genres his works have been organized into histories, comedies and tragedies. I hated all of his histories, having previously read a couple of these I generally tend to avoid them. Making this book perfect to gain a quick understanding of these plays. I enjoyed most of Shakespeare's comedies, however his tragedies is where he shines most. The concise nature of the text makes it the perfect cheat book for any Shakespearian scholar or someone wanting a quick refresh of his works. The book itself is a gorgeous design and it makes a cute addition to my bookshelf. Unfortunately, I see a lot of reviews have noticed several typos, mistaken characters mentioned and general spelling mistakes. Surely these errors should have been picked up by an editor? I haven't researched the publication, but I'm assuming for such a pretty, hardback book to be published that multiple people will have worked on the text and checked it before publication, so its hard to ignore these comments. I personally did not notice any mistakes, but I read the text quickly without paying much attention to it (forgive me, it's been a tiring month!). However I did instantly notice that the introduction has been copied and pasted from the other texts available in this box set, Love Sonnets and Abuses and Affronts. I feel as each book contains different material, a different introduction could have been provided for each text - I feel that this was just lazy authorship. Despite this, I will defiantly be reading this book again when studying Shakespeare to help pick out plays to compare with one another.

[Mayad Tarabey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well they did not lie when they said “in one sitting” lmao.
I was not over the last book I read (Circe) and I was literally just looking at my books on my shelves and I was like let me see what this tiny book looks like.
So I started reading and reading (it’s almost 3 am mind you) and I was at page 120-ish and I was like: okay, I guess I’m finishing this book?
It’s a really interesting introduction to the plays of William Shakespeare, it’s short and summarized in really easy terms and fun character descriptions (kudos to whoever wrote the character descriptions because some of them are pure literature comedy gold!)
This was included in a boxed set of three miniature Shakespeare books, I think the only one left for me to read is the sonnets collection one. Definitely looking forward to that!

[Suresh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having glanced at the Shakespeare works I readily know in this cheatsheet book, I gained an insight into what the storylines are. And it confirmed in me, that besides the possibility of the lyrical words and ideas used by William back then, and the steady production of the plays, I don't have much interest to read these plays. As a commonality they seem to revolve around romantic love (often with a patriarchal bend, that is with male privilege and female oppression), that of the attraction of physical and sexual attraction, and of the value placed on titles and kings and royalty. I didn't realise how anti-Semitic and Christian centric The Merchant of Venice is. Quite disgusting. Good cheat notes to know what the basics are. Thank you

[alicha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little overview of all the plays I bought back in London when I went to see Much ado about nothing. So I hold this book dearly as it reminds me of the wonderful evening. (And I found a small piece of confetti i apparently put in the book, exactlu at the point where they describe MAAN nawh)

It is also great for anyone who needs a quick overlook of all of shakespeares plays without too much hassle (besides the tiny bookset is adorable, I loveee)

[Kelly K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shakespeare isn't my favorite. I'm not one of those uppity bibliophiles that discusses his works at parties armed with a pipe and monocle. The dude does have a way with wording though. This book did what it was supposed to, gave a brief overview of his plays. Some more interesting than others. Pretty epic his stuff has survived all these years.

[Hannah Baird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a few typos, but it is a nifty little book. I had previously read Shakespeare for Grown-ups, which is a better summary of the bard's plays, but it is also longer. This book does a good job summarising the bare minimum for each play. Reading the historical play summaries one after the other gets a bit confusing, though!!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a little mini book.
It is divided into I. Histories, II. Tragedies, and III. Comedies.
Each play has a known line or two, the main characters, and
the story line.
It's a quick and cute way to get an overall view of all the plays.
It has inspired me to next check into reading Shakespeare's complete works
and also to watch some of them.

[qr lexi · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was quite aight. A short read that makes me want to actually read Shakespeare. It gets a bit confusing(at least in my case) after a while due to all the different stories that keep on going one after another.

[shifa hanani · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, I am not an avid reader of classics. However, this copy helps me to understand Shakespeare's plays well. It summarises the plays with usage of high frequency words, which is easy to read.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this quirky little book.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun summary of every one of Shakespeare's plays for the modern reader! I enjoyed the book, though I did not read it in One Sitting.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty presentations of the characters and summaries of the plays. Handy to pick up before a play/ movie :)

[Wilbur · Rating 4 out of 5]

All too brief.

[Chan Oga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly appreciate thus cheat book to all of William Shakepears’ plays.

Though, lots of typos towards the end.

[Brooke Tsu]

a cute lil collection of synopses. def sparse on the details, but the world of Shakespeare seems less daunting now

[Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the perfect bit size I needed for this global pandemic.

[NicolMG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, fun, useful to know the basics.

[Rebecca Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute.

[Lily Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars nice quick read, and a good introduction to the Shakespeare plays I didn’t really know

[Sahar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good I had a lot ofixed emotions so I think to whoever reads this you should pick up a book by shakespeare.

[John Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little summary of all his plays

[Darryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun little book. Very good, almost playful summaries of the works. (Lots of typos, though.)

[Anyssa Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this little pocket sized addition of Shakespeare’s books. Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, the twelfth night are my favorites! I wish they were just a tad longer but it’s a pretty well detailed summary of some of Shakespeare’s greatest novels.

[Kaiye · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way the summaries were written, I conclude that Shakespeare's characters were either greedy assholes or lovestruck idiots ^_^

[Angeli · Rating 3 out of 5]

[I don't usually write reviews, but I think I'll make an exception for this.]

Actually, I give this book 2.5 stars.

It is not an easy task to summarize all of William Shakespeare's plays, let alone to pack all those summaries in a conveniently small volume. For accomplishing these feats, I commend the writer.

However, I must admit that some of the summaries were still challenging to digest. And, though I am no expert on Shakespeare, I believe there are some errors - several of the "I-suppose-this-is-a-typo-but-it's-close-enough-to-one-of-the-character-names-that-I-get-the-point" kind, a bit of "I'm-not-sure-if-this-is-a-typo" kind, and a couple of "I-think-you're-referring-to-the-wrong-character" kind. With all due respect, a homage to Shakespeare deserves a little more proofreading and editing.

Overall, it's a handy introduction to Shakespeare, but not a very reliable reference. I hope a revised edition becomes available.