William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays

by William Shakespeare, Neil Packer (Illustrator), Gregory Doran (Introduction)

Discover the enduring legacy of Shakespeare The Complete Plays, initially published as a Limited Edition in 2023 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the First Folio and now available as a core edition. Featuring fabulous artwork by Neil Packer, a foreword by Dame Judi Dench and an introduction by Gregory Doran.

Editor’s Note
James Rose, Editor
Shakespeare's plays have suffused our culture and language like no others. Using the most authoritative text to date, this spectacular set presents the complete plays of the Bard, featuring a personal foreword by Dame Judi Dench.

Inspired by the black-and-red playbills of the Elizabethan era, award-winning artist Neil Packer has created an illustration for each of the plays, alongside bindings that feature some of Shakespeare’s most famous characters. The three volumes are housed in a slipcase representing the Globe Theatre where the plays were first produced. This is the ultimate edition of the most important writings in the English language, and a timeless gift that will be handed down from generation to generation.​

SYNOPSIS
On 8 November 1623, the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was registered, uniting the great playwright’s work in a single printed collection for the first time, ensuring its preservation for centuries. Four hundred years later, in 2023, Folio celebrated this momentous anniversary with a sensational limited edition that sold out in record time. Now, we are excited to release the core edition, allowing those who missed the limited edition to experience this exquisite collection of Shakespeare's plays. Featuring a foreword by Dame Judi Dench, an introduction by Gregory Doran, formerly the RSC’s Artistic Director Emeritus, and 40 illustrations by Neil Packer, this edition is sure to captivate and delight.

This edition of The Complete Plays of William Shakespeare uses text from The Arden Shakespeare Third Series Complete Works, first published 2021 and edited by Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson, David Scott Kastan and H.R. Woudhuysen.

THE IDEAL TEXT
Echoing the divisions in the First Folio; the plays are divided between three volumes – The Comedies, The Tragedies and The Histories. Uncluttered by notes, and with a generous setting, the 38 plays are beautifully readable and follow The Arden Shakespeare Third Series Complete Works – the most up-to-date and authoritative versions. Although the First Folio comprised 36 plays, both Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen are included for completeness.

PRODUCTION DETAILS
Beautiful three-volume set​
Bound in printed and blocked cloth ​
1,456 pages in total, type set in Caslon with a hand design version by Neil Packer as display
Printed in two colors throughout ​
43 illustrations in total ​
Silk ribbon markers​
Printed paper slipcase​
Sized at 11½˝ x 8˝

Genres: Plays, Fiction

1456 pages, Hardcover

Published October 14, 2024

About the author

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".