Complete Works

Arden Shakespeare Third Series

by William Shakespeare, David Scott Kastan (Editor), Ann Thompson (Editor)

This new Complete Works marks the completion of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series and includes the complete plays, poems and sonnets, edited by leading international scholars. New to this edition are the 'apocryphal' plays, part-written by Double Falsehood, Sir Thomas More and King Edward III. The anthology is unique in giving all three extant texts of Hamlet from Shakespeare's the first and second Quarto texts of 1603 and 1604-5, and the first Folio text of 1623. The volume has a general introduction, short contextual introductions to the texts, a glossary and a bibliography to aid understanding and study.

The works

Shakespeare's Sonnets
A Lover's Complaint
Venus and Adonis
Lucrece
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Phoenix and the Turtle
All's Well that Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Double Falsehood
Second Quarto
First Quarto
First Folio
Julius Caesar
King Edward III
King Henry IV, Part 1
King Henry IV, Part 2
King Henry V
King Henry VI, Part 1
King Henry VI, Part 2
King Henry VI, Part 3
King Henry VIII
King John
King Lear
King Richard II
King Richard III
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Romeo and Juliet
Sir Thomas More
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Winter's Tale

Genres: Shakespeare, Drama, Plays, Classics

1512 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 15, 2020

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

[Jonathan O'Neill]

Shakespeare's Sonnets/A Lover's Complaint 4.5 ⭐
Venus and Adonis/Lucrece/The Passionate Pilgrim/The Phoenix and the Turtle
All's Well that Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Double Falsehood
Hamlet: Second Quarto
Hamlet: First Quarto
Hamlet: First Folio
Julius Caesar
King Edward III
King Henry IV, Part 1
King Henry IV, Part 2
King Henry V
King Henry VI, Part 1
King Henry VI, Part 2
King Henry VI, Part 3
King Henry VIII
King John
King Lear
King Richard II
King Richard III
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Romeo and Juliet
Sir Thomas More
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Winter's Tale

[Nawel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manque de temps !