Great Speeches and Soliloquies (Classic Drama) [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

William Shakespeare (Author), Simon Russell Beale (Performer), Estelle Kohler (Performer)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1994 | Series: Classic Drama

This magnificent selection of key speeches from Shakespeare's plays including, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and others remind the listener of his extraordinary gift for penetrating human nature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

And the most enjoyable treat of all: Simon Russell Beale - a National Treasure in the making - reads Great Speeches and Soliloquies on ever-resourceful Naxos AudioBooks. - John Horder, Camden New Journal --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks; Abridged edition (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9626345152
• ISBN-13: 978-9626345153
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,095,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars AudioBook is Useless, November 15, 2007

By 

Liam O'Shiel "Liam" (Luray, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Speeches and Soliloquies (Classic Literature with Classical Music) (Audio CD)

DO NOT buy the audiobook download of this book. You will get a 2-hour audio file with no indexing of any kind. You will not even know what soliloquies are in the file, let alone where to find them.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, August 20, 2000

By 

Alex (P.E.I., Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Speeches and Soliloquies (Classic Literature with Classical Music) (Audio CD)

Everyone knows that William Shakespeare wrote a great many speeches. Everyone knows that Hamlet had a soliloquy, that there was a big famous speech about a stage (or something) in ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, that Romeo and Juliet had a "balcony scene," but this is not enough to spread the genius of Shakespeare throughout the world! This book contains nearly all the speeches ever written by this "phantom of the stage" and when all you people who have not read very much Shakespeare and think it's boring, I assure you this will change your mind. You will most likely be memorizing all of the speeches and buying all Shakespeares plays or sonnets! Buy this book and am positive that you will not regret it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good readings. A little too much music., January 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Speeches and Soliloquies (Classic Literature with Classical Music) (Audio CD)

Although I've never heard of these actors before, they all do a very nice job on the readings. They are all English (Americans cannot speak Shakespeare for some reason) and with the Royal Shakespeare Company which should explain why. As opposed to most Shakespeare collections, these readings are not scenes, but just individual speeches which stand well on their own as poetry.
There is a very brief, one sentence introduction to every speech. My only quibble is that there's a musical interlude between every speech which gets a little tiring after a while.