Rate this book

The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare [38 plays, 5 poems, sonnets]

Name: The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare [38 plays, 5 poems, sonnets]
Rating: 4.55 (42 reviews)
ISBN: 9780155126107

William Shakespeare, Sylvan Barnet (Editor)

Rate this book

Brings together in one volume editions of all the plays, poems, and sonnets originally published as individual paperbacks in the New American Library's Signet Classic Shakespeare series. With a General Introduction by Professor Barnet, introductions to the individual plays by the contributing editors.

Table of Contents
The comedy of errors --
The first part of Henry the sixth --
The second part of Henry the sixth --
The third part of Henry the sixth --
The tragedy of Richard the third --
The tragedy of Titus Andronicus --
The taming of the shrew --
The two gentlemen of Verona --
Love's labor's lost --
The tragedy of King Richard the second --
The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet --
A midsummer night's dream --
The life and death of King John --
The merchant of Venice --
The history of Henry the fourth (part one) --
The second part of Henry the fourth --
Much ado about nothing --
The life of Henry the fifth --
The tragedy of Julius Caesar --
As you like it --
Twelfth night, or, what you will --
The tragical history of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark --
The merry wives of Windsor --
The history of Troilus and Cressida --
All's well that ends well --
The tragedy of Othello, the moor of Venice --
Measure for measure --
The tragedy of King Lear --
The tragedy of Macbeth --
The tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra --
The tragedy of Coriolanus --
The life of Timon and Athens --
Pericles, Prince of Tyre --
Cymbeline --
The winter's tale --
The tempest --
The life of King Henry the eighth --
The two noble Kinsmen --
Venus and Adonis --
The rape of Lucrece --
The phoenix and the turtle --
A lover's complaint --
The passionate pilgrim.
Sonnets

GenresClassicsFictionPoetryPlaysShakespeareLiteratureDrama

1776 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1972

About the author

William Shakespeare

17.8k books48.7k followers

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

What do you think?

Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars

369 (68%)

4 stars

115 (21%)

3 stars

41 (7%)

2 stars

7 (1%)

1 star

6 (1%)

Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews

Brad

Author 2 books1,987 followers

September 1, 2009

For Harold Bloom*:

Can 35 Thousand Literary Critics and 3 Million Groundlings Be Wrong? Yes.

Taking arms against Shakespeare, at this moment, is to emulate Harry Potter standing up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Simply opposing Lord V-- won't end him. The Shakespeare epiphenomenon will go on, doubtless for some time, as J. R. R. Tolkien did, and then wane. Or so one can hope.

The official newspaper of our dominant counter-culture, The New York Times, has been startled by Shakespeare's plays into establishing a new policy for its not very literate book review. Rather than crowd out the Grishams, Clancys, Crichtons, Kings, Rowlings and other vastly popular prose fictions on its fiction bestseller list, the Shakespeare plays will now lead a separate theatre list. William Shakespeare, the chronicler of such characters as "Hamlet" and "King Lear," thus has an unusual distinction: he has changed the policy of the policy-maker.

Imaginative Vision

I read new dramatic literature, when I can find some of any value, but had not tried Shakespeare until now. I have just concluded "The Comedy of Errors," purportedly the funniest of the lot. Though the play is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "The Comedy of Errors" does not, so that one needs to look elsewhere for the play's remarkable success. Such speculation should follow an account of how and why "The Comedy of Errors" asks to be read.

The ultimate model for "The Comedy of Errors" is "Menaechmi" by Plautus, performed in Ancient Rome. The play depicts the mistaken identity of a set of twins named Menaechmus. But Plautus' play, still quite performable, was a Roman musical, not an Elizabethan comedy. Shakespeare has taken "Menaechmi" and re-seen it in the silly mirror of slapstick. The resultant blend of mistaken identities with cheesy Elizabethan idiocy may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of theatregoers and their parents desire and welcome at this time.

In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of "The Comedy of Errors." But I will keep in mind that a host are watching it who simply will not watch superior fare, such as Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" or the "Tamburlaine" plays of Christopher Marlowe. Is it better that they watch Shakespeare than not watch at all? Will they advance from Shakespeare to more difficult pleasures? One doubts both possibilities.

-----------------------------------------------------

Rest is available at [http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/courses/205...]

-----------------------------------------------------

*This review is a spoof of Bloom's attack on JK Rowling, which can be found here.

I should also mention that I love Shakespeare. I don't think he'll mind me bringing down his 4.75 average rating too much.

shakespeare

Andria Potter

Author 2 books99 followers

June 13, 2023

I've read this twice. Once as a teenage girl and again as a thirty year old adult, same edition. Shakespeare remains a true masterpiece. Some I liked better than others, but all were very good. King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummers Nights Dream, Twelfth Night some of my favorites to name but a few. It took me two weeks to read this but I forgot to mark when I started this. I'm giving this a 4.5 ⭐ rounded up. Bravo!👏

wyclif

202 reviews

December 1, 2015

Critically speaking, still the finest one-volume complete Shakespeare. Signet is refreshingly free of PC literary criticism. This edition is far superior to third-rate editions offered by Norton and other publishers that have been completely sold out to the dark side—namely, woke critical theory and noveau DEI frameworks.

english literature shakespeare

Jay Daze

729 reviews19 followers

April 23, 2009

Very heavy. Do not read in bath. Oh, and some great plays.

literature

Katja Labonté

Author 34 books392 followers

July 4, 2021

Adrian Ross

97 reviews

June 30, 2020

Finally found a book not on the Goodreads database! I read the single-volume Arden Edition of The Tempest (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), complete with text, footnotes and 160-page introduction. I loved the thoroughness of the editors but in some places they really laboured over the possible meaning of words, almost ignoring the fact that this was reasonably obvious from their sound and context.

That aside, this was a deeply informative and inspiring guide to Shakespeare's last and most enigmatic play. I see that they have included some of the possible sources and some adaptations of the play as appendices, which gives me a reason to return to this fabulous volume another time.

Eric

328 reviews3 followers

Read

October 18, 2024

10/24: The Life of Henry the Fifth

Kev Nickells

Author 2 books2 followers

May 4, 2024

It's taken me more than a year to read this I've been drifting in and out. It is of course massive. Mostly ploughed through it this year.

Does it even make sense to review Shakespeare? I think it does. But obviously it's impossible to speak as if this is absolved of context. There are of course people who don't know Bill and don't know about him but they were likely not raised in the UK, as I was. I'm interested in some aspects of that pretence though. Shakespeare is solidly at the centre of English writing and there's a lot of political scaffolding attached to that. Approaching it as if I _could_ answer the question 'do you recommend reading Shakespeare?' is a caprice I'm into.

Quick paragraph on editions - I got a hard copy of the Arden Shakespeare; it doesn't have annotations / footnotes; I actually read an ereader version called 'the complete works', based on the 1974 Riverside Edition. 99p. The reason I read it on an ereader is because the Arden Shakespeare is too big to read on my lap, and I didn't want to spend several months reading it on my desk. I am an idiot and don't think about these things, and habitually get a physical copy. I'd recommend not doing that because it's 2024 and we can have our massive books and read them in comfortable places, which in this context is the cake we are having and eating. I imagine an annotated edition would be larger. I imagine it would be easier to read also.

So there's a couple of points I'd like to make here which are kind of about the hermeneutics of Shakespeare, if I might be so bold. Shakespeare is not a holy text in the sense of there being a religious tradition but his work is certainly revered by the English establishment, and his work is often central to English identity. I think he's equally a large part of British identity, which is subtly different in ways I won't expand on here. In literary-cultural terms, Shakespeare is one of English writing's most important names.

A part of that relationship is how Shakespeare is writing in a form of English that is... coextensive with contemporary English. And I think it's an important point that I'll come back to - the language of Shakespeare is not the same that I speak, and however many people speak, in the 21st century. His is the beginnings of where the language is now but it is not the same. There are plenty of wee differences - the embedded sexism, plenty of words that have fallen into disuse and are archaic relative to Shakespeare's time. But there are differences at a level of grammar and syntax. The construction "Let us to..." is common and in contemporary English we'd have a verb in there but Bill doesn't need one. And the reason he doesn't need one is because his English is different to ours.

I'd imagine some readers would groan at this as a point so obvious as to be facile. But what I want to establish is that there's a lot about Shakespeare that's prohibitive to many readers. I read an edition without footnotes or annotations and that made a lot of it hard. I read an edition in English that is not the same modern English I know and use, and that made a lot of it hard to read. Part of the elegance of Shakespeare lies in the eldritch, ornate, rigorously mutable syntax. A large part of what renders Shakespeare prohibitive lies in precisely his mastery, and also his mastery of an English that is uncannily dissimilar to ours.

There's a political ramification that doubles back into a reading as well. So Shakespeare, in some senses, represents the peak of English writing to the world. And some of that is circumstantial. But some of it is related to the content. I read that Shakespeare is the beginnings of 'the history of England / Britain'. Prior to this the culture (writing) does not reflect the politics (lineage of monarchy). I think it's worth adjoining to that a context - Shakespeare is part of how the British establishment identifies itself. I mean that there are aspects, especially of the toothless histories (which are most of them), which are small-c conservative, and also big-c Conservative. Clueless French antagonists, dullard Welshmen, astonishingly outmoded antisemitism (not just Shylock - I think every mention of Jews is negative in a way that should be embarrassing for a national author).

It's not a particularly incisive criticism to say 'old writer is a bit racist' but my point is that Shakespeare reflects a part-jingoistic view of Britain itself, a Britain that writes about its own monarchy in effusive terms. And Shakespeare historically sits in the middle of some very volatile history that culminated in a republic (and then, notoriously, conservative recidivism took over and plagued the country every since). The way the culture embodies the politics is important and Shakespeare's history and politics tends towards an uncritical approach to royalty.

And there are relative criticisms - it's not fawningly positive. But in contemporary times Shakespeare represents a status quo with regards the political systems of the UK. Our national writer doesn't write women well and is pretty racist - though tellingly not always as racist as you might expect towards people we'd now call black.

I don't want this to seem like a shallow and lazy criticism - like 'old writers context was different and bad, boo'. I mean that part of the reason Shakespeare is 'the national writer' is because he writes the nation, he embodies conservative values that have been the political status quote since the 1600s.

And back to the prohibitive writing - it's telling also that the national writer is almost unbearably codified. It's a form of English that requires a lot of context and intellectual overhead to dig into. No surprise that a country ridden with class and elitism in its political structures should have a national writer who is largely opaque to most readers of the language _in its own country_ - let alone folk reading this in second languages etc.

We give this to children and expect them to understand it. I enjoyed it as a wain. But it's _difficult_ to read and young people, especially those who aren't that engaged with historical literature, are liable to end up feeling stupid when exposed to it. Most contemporaries (Johnson, Marlow, Greene etc) of Shakespeare are for specialists - degree + level academics or those with a particular bent. And that seems appropriate - there's a lot of context that makes that writing difficult. Plonking a difficult writer in the centre of our literary culture is... well, it's very classically English. It's wrong-headed.

Now I've said all that and it sounds like I'm not a fan of Shakespeare. That's not true. I struggled with a lot of this and I really should've read it more slowly. More on that in a sec. But it's all high quality. It's all densely suffused with a poetic style that is incisive and persuasive. It'll be weird reading other things now because I've lived with this very sing-songy flow for a few months. Instantly familiar and yet enormously durable. The stories are largely amazing, even if I could do with less 'the social tribunal' and 'alienated, hero returns in disguise' plots. I genuinely look forward to coming back to it - to see if I still find Timon a weirdly anxious, freighted little bitch, to see if Henry VI changed from a solid hero in part 1 to a bumbling fool in part 3, to see if I still read Lady Macbeth as a conniving dogshit... etc. These are living, full-bloodied people, characters who all sing by Shakespeare's hand but each with a subtly different tenor. For all the difficulty of reading this - and I have to stress, I feel like that isn't talked about enough - there's plenty to return to.

On how to read this - so I'm not going to presume to tell people how to read this. What I can tell you is that my way of reading didn't behove me well. I basically read it obsessively, rushing through, with a view to finishing it quickly. I brushed over parts. What I _should've_ done was to read it sparingly and slowly. I'll probably go for a play every other month or something next - rather than being paralysed by the 'must finish' principle, I'll do it at leisure. Because there's so much detail, constantly overwhelmingly detailed, I wolfed it down and didn't digest it well. I should probably read an annotated version, or at least give myself space to look up passages (there's no shortage of help online). It's a sumptuous complexity and I'd not recommend rushing, unless you're confident and familiar - the plays I've acted in as a teenager were more familiar than the ones that were new to me.

On consistency - by and large it's all worth reading. Much of the histories is dry, and much of the comedies are not that funny but principally there's very little that isn't woven with Shakespeare's astonishing capacity for these vocal rhythms that drill into your head (I had dreams in iambic pentameter). It's very noticeable where a play is questionably a Shakespeare play or where Bill has a lessened authorial voice (Henry VIII) but even so those act as contrast and relief from the other plays.

So really there's two points here - there's a strong political motivation to his elevation as 'our national writer' and that is often rum; but there's also a writer who is bastard complex, wily and witty and sharp and illuminating and often plain dumb, and that's worth reading. But doubly so worth reading with a view to dismantling the systems that elevate Shakespeare the nationalist, the maker of cheap jokes about the French, the antisemite.

I appreciate that a lot of what I've said here is covered at length everywhere because there is nothing left to say about Shakespeare. But I've said it now.

tl;dr - cracking book, yeah, recommend.

Martin Bihl

534 reviews19 followers

April 25, 2009

11-16-19

General Introduction

08-11-19

Sonnets

What a terrific introduction W. H. Auden wrote for this section. Worth the price of admission right there.

05-14-19

Phoenix and the Turtle, A Lover's Complaint, The Passionate Pilgrim

02-01-19

The Rape of Lucrece

10-15-18

Venus and Adonis

08-28-18

Two Noble Kinsmen

07-26-18

Henry VIII

much more interesting than i anticipated, and as a fan of "A Man for All Seasons" i could hear the places where it overlapped with Bolt's work.

04-15-18

The Tempest

09-03-17

A Winters Tale

07-11-17

Cymbeline

Much better than the introduction led me to believe. Yes, it's a bit neat at the end, and yes, may of the classic Shakespeare tricks are here. But all in all, compelling, interesting and well done.

05-27-17

Pericles

A Shakespeare play that experts think he only wrote 60% of? Well this is an interesting mish-mash...

01-16-17

Timon of Athens

Hypocritical senators, fairweather friends and a good man driven mad by humanity? Clearly a work of fiction...

06-05-16

Coriolanus

Fascinating - had neither read nor seen it performed before, nor knew the story, so i found the portrait of a hero at odds with his nation quite compelling.

03-23-16

Anthony & Cleopatra

Is it just me or is this play, not exactly a mess (it's obviously well-crafted and well-written), but just sort of a puzzle? Not exactly a love story, not exactly a tragedy, not exactly a history, not a comedy. What's the through-line? Antony's ambition? The tumultuous relationship between he and Cleopatra? I dunno.

02-15-16

MacBeth

01-02-16

King Lear

11-07-15

Measure for Measure

08-15-15

Othello

03-31-15

All's Well That Ends Well

01-09-15

Troilus & Cresieda

11-09-14

The Merry Wives of Windsor

10-02-14

Hamlet

06-02-14

Twelfth Night

05-06-14

As You Like It

10-18-13

Julius Caesar

08-15-13

Henry V

05-16-13

Much Ado About Nothing

03-28-13

Henry IV, Part Two

10-26-12

Henry IV, Part One

09-16-12

The Merchant of Venice

06-12-12

The Life and Death of King John

02-07-12

A Midsummer Night's Dream

12-20-11

Romeo & Julliet

06-25-11

Richard II

03-20-11

Love's Labour Lost

02-16-11

Two Gentlemen of Verona

05-07-10

The Taming of the Shrew - I love this play. Maybe that makes me a bad person, I don't know. I love the problems of it, I love watching directors and actors try to solve the problems of it, I love the wordplay, the banter, the elaborate deceptions - I just really enjoy it. I even enjoy the two filmed performances that I've seen - the Jonathan Miller version starring John Cleese and the Kirk Browning version featuring Marc Singer (yep, THAT Marc Singer). And you know what? After reading the introduction that precedes it here in this volume, I love it even more. The author points up elements and references and aspects that I had not considered before, making it even more interesting and compelling. Look, you may not like the play, and I respect it. But for me, this is one of Shakespeare's finest.

02-22-10

Titus Andronicus - You know, TS Eliot said this was the stupidest play ever written; and that's coming from the guy who penned "The Cocktail Party" so he knows from stupid. And while it was really violent, i didn't mind it. Sure the characters aren't as deep and profoundly drawn as in other plays, but i feel with this play you see the young author working his craft, learning, making mistakes (like there's way way too much going on, for example). And that's interesting. And frankly, if you made it as a movie today, i'm sure the crowds would eat it up as the great unwashed did back in the 1590s. Look, if you're only going to read, say, 5 plays by Shakespeare, I wouldn't put this on your list. But if you're interested in watching him develop, you could do worse. (Though you have to ask yourself, what the hell prompted him to pick this story...)

01-28-10

Richard III - like the Henrys, wish i had a more facile understanding of the details of the history so i could appreciate this more. That said, some great banter and Richard still emerges as a stunningly intriguing character. No wonder actors make their bones on him. Makes me want to see it live - or at least a movie.

10-09-09

Henry VI part 3 - okay, so i finished this trilogy. Richard III is poised to commit all manner of atrocity. Lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of guts. And interestingly, more complicated characters than in the previous two "parts" - not that they're consistent. Makes me want to learn more about the history, so i can come back to this play (of the three) and understand Shakespeare's take on it. That said, one can't come away from this play unaffected by Shakespeare's fear of the chaos of revolution and civil war. Good stuff.

04-24-09
Henry VI part 2 is apparently Shakespeare's earliest known work, and you can tell. It's clearly not one of his best unless you're well-versed in the history, but still, at times, greatness glimmers through.

02-01-09
Henry VI part 1 was better than i expected, but hampered by my ignorance of the players and the era. and, of course, like all plays, should be seen rather than read. nevertheless still good banter at points that even a dullard like me can appreciate.

03-02-08
A Comedy of Errors was very enjoyable. A little confusing, of course, and a little bit of the "deus ex machina" at the end, but you can forgive that because it's an early play and it never loses its light touch

SiSApis

94 reviews11 followers

January 21, 2016

My go-to edition for acting and directing, and indeed for simple enjoying or the occasional browse-through for whatever reason (what was the name of that character in--? how exactly did that line go--?).

I've had it so long I didn't realize it ever had a dust cover (the picture here was startling!). They call this the "compact edition," but it is perfectly readable. For working production scripts, I do make somewhat enlarged copies.

shakespeare

Gitta

100 reviews69 followers

March 25, 2012

So far I've read:
- Hamlet (November 2009
- King Lear (January 2009)
- Macbeth (December 2009)
- Measure for Measure (March 2012)
- Merchant of Venice (November 2009; March 2012)
- Much Ado about Nothing (March 2010)
- Othello (October 2009)

- Venus and Adonis (April 2011)
- Sonnets (majority) (January-February 2011)

british-literature format-collection-selection format-plays

Raj

39 reviews

July 27, 2026

Macbeth: I have wanted to read this play although I have seen a couple of film adaptations over the years. It's a short play, and although I didn't fully understand the language and having to look things up it was very enjoyable. After I read the play I looked up a scene by scene synopsis which aided my understanding even more.

Jim

21 reviews1 follower

Read

April 20, 2007

Great comprehensive collection;the characters and stories are phenomenal classics. Once you get over the language differences by reading a little, it all starts to make sense; if it doesn't there are plenty of footnotes.

Janelle V. Dvorak

180 reviews9 followers

June 24, 2008

This will always be on my currently-reading shelf. It's something one can finish and begin again at the beginning.

always-reading

Tana Gibson

18 reviews18 followers

Currently Reading

January 20, 2010

Muddling through

Julie Spencer

112 reviews25 followers

October 10, 2018

Shakespeare is a very well-known historical figure and Author, Play write and more. His writing is studied in schools, higher education and beyond. From stage to cinema. At some time in your life, whether we know it or not, we will have seen or heard a Shakespearean script.
Why share that I have read this edition of collected works now?
The reading of this collection of works is an endless task, and again, as with many other books that I have collected over recent years, I 'read it' on a variety of levels, for reading, for inspiring and for prompting stories.
If anyone had asked me who this chap was when I was a teen I would have said, “Who?” Even in my twenties - I had sort of heard of him, but - I was too busy living a life to make the time understand this Writer. At no point in my childhood education do I ever remember been asked to understand the Authors. Times have changed, and I have recently learned more and more about Shakespeare via the T.V. the internet and choosing to study him, and his writing. I discovered there were so many films I had watched and books that I had read that I thoroughly enjoyed, and they had all used the plots and story-line-arcs that Shakespeare shared hundreds of years ago.
Again, with a lot of the book choices I have had in recent months and years, this book is not one for the bottom of your handbag, or briefcase. It is heavy. On a positive note, you would burn additional work-out-calories if you chose to carry it around.
This book shares the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and it is easy to follow, just cumbersome if you planned to take it for a holiday read, it adds on just too many baggage handling kgs. I highly recommend this book if you like to know a bit about Literature and the past. Today, I don’t know about you, but stories just aren’t told in the same way anymore, but when on the odd occasion they do reflect the original works, I often catch my breath.
I have a greater appreciation for plot and the suspense held within tales, thanks to Shakespeare. And this book can be a wonderful tool if you like to practice I-Ching or the Censa method when Poetry writing.
Julie Spencer, Creative Writing, and Philosopher

17-readers-book-shelf academic-readers

Benjamin

1 review1 follower

Currently Reading

August 17, 2011

kind of boring, the writer is obviously a white male and therefore i found this boring because i am prefer politically corrected. it had some ok stuff in some parts but it is too boring and ultimately i couldn't get into it. i would instead the harry potters if you want good writing. also in some part it wasn't clear if he is an atheist or not, so i prefer Hitchens, who KNOWS. some of this is old in his career and kind of redundant becuae kings and queens over again. And despite the ringing endorsements when some people who call him 'life changing' it is not worth picking up. also i think it was phallo-centric and racist and that the writer is pretendious. if i could give it a zero i would it is just not worth it and i have read a lot of buks.

favorite plays-theater-acting

Nick Pearson

179 reviews1 follower

February 17, 2023

After reading the entirety of Shakespeare's works, two things are true for me: 1) these are best experienced as they were intended--on a stage with actors that understand their craft and put their own stamp on the words, 2) the works that are commonly known are known for a reason. Oh sure, there's a few standouts in the group that don't get much credit, and some truly amazing lines in terrible plays, but the average reader won't find too much in the way of undiscovered gems. That said, Shakespeare deserves the credit heaped upon his name for his command of the language and his turn of phrase. I find that none of my zeal for his greatest works is diminished after encountering some of his less-praiseworthy efforts, and the total of his collected works adds to an unmatched sum.

Lilac Lowenthal

26 reviews1 follower

August 2, 2011

What can I add to such a masterpiece? What can I say about it that haven't been said for a thousand times or more? It's brilliant, witty, touching, exciting, funny, and at times the language is excruciatingly hard to understand, but even then the structure of each sentence and paragraph is so perfect and delighting that it seems almost unimportant to understand while those magical words roll on your tongue.

Tom Wascoe

Author 2 books32 followers

June 19, 2017

Outstanding work. The plays and sonnets themselves are excellent-by the master. The plays and sonnets are presented in chronological order. For each play, the editors have written an historical context and the source of inspiration for Shakespeare. The editors also present alternative verses and indicate which other writer with whom Shakespeare collaborated. They also indicate which works or parts of works that Shakespeare may not have written. An outstanding work by the editors.

Tatyana

60 reviews

June 5, 2025

i finished it. 4 months of lugging this brick of a book around the uk with me on my study abroad. i have now read every play, every narrative poem, every sonnet. there were a few misses in there to be sure (cough cough pericles cough cough) but the greatest hits are hits for a reason.

this was such an undertaking but you know what? i did it. i completed my goal of reading this entire thing during my exchange semester and i did it with time to spare. anything is possible

faves

Willis

430 reviews

December 30, 2020

A few months ago I decided to read the complete works by the end of the year. Mission accomplished. This is a great volume for doing a full read. The plays are written in the presumed order Shakespeare wrote them in which allows you to follow his style over time. How can this be anything but 5 stars?

Ricky German

20 reviews1 follower

October 15, 2012

I was a theatre major in college and I like the Arden because it's just the text. It can be a pain if you don't know the words, and I don't always, but for copying monologues and reading Shakespeare you already know, I love it.

costume

David

1 review

August 16, 2021

This is the best of the “complete works” that I have found. It ‘s more portable than most, has an excellent layout, excellent marginal notes and summaries. You’ll need to get this from a used book dealer, but it’s well worth the effort.

Mark Woodland

5 reviews1 follower

May 29, 2007

In my experience, the Arden guides are THE best companion to Shakespeare, with spectacularly good footnotes.

classics non-fiction

Char

112 reviews3 followers

September 19, 2007

The stranded-on-a-desert-island must have.

Kat(i)e

54 reviews1 follower

March 30, 2008

I was on this "classics" thing when I lived abroad. I loved reading them without the pressure of being graded or tested on them. I could just enjoy them on their own.

Crazy Uncle Ryan

479 reviews30 followers

July 31, 2008

My dad gave me this book as a gift when I was in high school. You gotta love Shakespeare.

books-i-own classics

Cathy

125 reviews3 followers

July 18, 2009

Always been a fan

Mary Woodard

22 reviews

Want to Read

January 7, 2011

Currently Reading Antony and Cleopatra
Will Be Reading:
Sonnets
As You Like It
Richard II
Henry IV, Part I
Othello
Hamlet
Macbeth
King Lear
The Tempest

st-john-s-college

Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews

More reviews and ratings

Join the discussion

The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare [38 plays, 5 poems, sonnets]

William Shakespeare, Sylvan Barnet (Editor)

About the author

William Shakespeare

Ratings & Reviews

Friends & Following

Community Reviews

Join the discussion