Barbara A. Mowat

"Timon of Athens has struck many readers as rough and unpolished, perhaps even unfinished, though to others it has appeared as Shakespeare's most profound tragic allegory. Described by Coleridge as 'the stillborn twin of King Lear', the play has nevertheless proved brilliantly effective in performance over the past thirty or forty years." "This edition accepts and contributes to the growing scholarly consensus that the play is not Shakespeare's solo...

Love's Labours Lost - William Shakespeare - Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to forswear the company of women for three years of study and fasting, and their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies. In...

Cymbeline tells the story of a British king, Cymbeline, and his three children, presented as though they are in a fairy tale. The secret marriage of Cymbeline's daughter, Imogen, triggers much of the action, which includes villainous slander, homicidal jealousy, cross-gender disguise, a deathlike trance, and the appearance of Jupiter in a vision. Kidnapped in infancy, Cymbeline's two sons are raised in a Welsh cave. As young men, they rescue a starving...

The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A.R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare's time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller,...

The authoritative edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on the facing page of each sonnet -A brief introduction to each sonnet, providing insight into its possible meaning -An index of first lines -Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books -An essay...

Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The plot follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatra's suicide during the Final War of the Roman Republic. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire. The tragedy is mainly set in Rome and Egypt, and is characterized...

"Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well is the story of its heroine, Helen, more so than the story of Bertram, for whose love she yearns. Helen wins Bertram as her husband despite his lack of interest and higher social standing, but she finds little happiness in the victory as he shuns, deserts, and attempts to betray her. The play suggests some sympathy for Bertram. As a ward to the French king, he must remain at court while his friends go off to...

The story of Pericles of Tyre who flees his homeland to escape King Antiochus, wins the love of Thaisa, daughter of Simonides, and through a series of fateful events eventually reunites with Thaisa and their daughter, Marina.

"Henry VI, Part 1 is an uncompromising celebration of early English nationalism that contrasts the English with the French, portrayed here as effeminate and scheming. A boy king, Henry VI, is on the English throne, and the indomitable Talbot leads the English cause in France. Joan La Pucelle (Joan of Arc), who becomes captain of the French, claims to be chosen by the Virgin Mary to liberate France. The English, however, consider her a sensual witch....

Betrayal and Honor-- Fearing that Caesar means to end the Roman republic and make himself the emperor, Brutus, Caesar's closest friend, allows himself to be caught up in a plot to kill Caesar. Once Caesar is killed Brutus realizes, too late, that there was far more to this than meets the eye. Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are...