Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

The complete works of Shakespeare have to be considered among the greatest works in all of English literature. This Kindle ebook contains Shakespeare's complete plays and complete poems in a new, easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate format. What's COMEDIES All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline Love's Labours Lost Measure for Measure The Merry Wives of Windsor The Merchant of Venice A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen of Verona Winter's Tale HISTORIES Henry IV, part 1 Henry IV, part 2 Henry V Henry VI, part 1 Henry VI, part 2 Henry VI, part 3 Henry VIII King John Richard II Richard III TRAGEDIES Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus THE COMPLETE POEMS 154 Sonnets A Lover's Complaint The Rape of Lucrece Venus and Adonis A Funeral Elegy This version has been optimized for readability on the Kindle and BEAUTIFUL FORMATTING Character names are offset from the dialogue so it is easy to discern who is speaking. There is plenty of white-space which makes reading easy on the eyes. FULLY FEATURED TABLE OF CONTENTS The full TOC appears at the beginning of the book and can be accessed through the MENU or GO TO button.

Genres: Plays

5237 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 17, 2018

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".

Reviews

[Anthony Murawski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is NOT The Riverside Shakespeare, Second Edition

The Riverside Shakespeare, Second Edition was published in hardback in 1997. The first edition was published in 1974. This electronic version contains nothing but the texts of the plays from the first edition. The title page of this electronic version states, "based on the 1974 Riverside Edition." When I took a course on Shakespeare in my second year of undergrad studies in 1 985, we used the original first edition (I do not know which printing of the first edition we used. About a year ago I bought the first edition in hard copy, used and in good condition (sixth printing, with corrections and additions) for only $4.00 because all of my books were destroyed in an apartment fire in early 1986. The pages of the first edition are 10 inches tall and nearly eight inches wide, with thin (but not extremely thin) paper. It is 1,923 pages long and contains a 26 page general introduction, followed by an 18 page section titled Shakespeare's Text. That section begins with several quotes of text familiar to Shakespeare readers, such as "[m]ost readers know that MacBeth, reproached by Lady MacBeth for seeming cowardice, asserts, 'I dare doo all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none,'" and other such examples. After four more examples, the essay states': " What most readers are not aware of, however, is that none of these familiar lines appeared in the original, basic texts in exactly the same form here quoted; in fact, each contains one or more amended words designed to restore meaning to an otherwise corrupt passage. " This section of the first edition is followed by a chronology of texts and sources. Each play has an introduction of its own introduction. The first full-length page of The Comedy of Errors contains 39 footnotes making it possible to understand the text (e.g., "making amain" means "proceeding at full speed"; "gave healthful advice" means advice saving the lives of shipwracl'd guests, etc.).
The second edition 2,057 pages long, with additional information. It is available used in good or very good condition on Amazon and through other outlets for a mere $10.00. I could not possibly understand what I am reading without those notes and all of the other helpful information, all of which is missing from this electronic version falsely advertised as the second edition.

[Steven · Rating 1 out of 5]

It seems like a lot of the content needs an understanding of upper-class English society at the start of the 20th century. I found it really had to focus to keep my mind on the book as none of the characters grabbed me, nothing in the story hooked my interest.

[Robert Montalbo]

Good old Shakespeare. God rest his soul.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read Macbeth and some poems. Its a great book, however I miss my original college edition with notes from classes.

[Heather Bouyear · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a feat to read in four months. Not sure I will do that again.