Customer Reviews

The Histories and Poems of William Shakespeare

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It's got to be said somewhere and it might as well be here: Kindle does not handle poetry well. Verse is often set as prose, as in the Kindle stand-alone sonnets of Shakespeare. This edition is much better in that respect, but whenever a verse line is too long to fit on one line, it is set as two lines, both with flush left margins (not the usual practice with verse) or even worse, as three lines, all with flush left margins but the last two very short, one or two words apiece. This is hard to read and unnecessary, an obvious computer glitch. On top of that, the prose passages in this volume, and that includes the very important Falstaff scenes, are set in sets of two alternating lines, one normal length, the other quite short, another obvious computer glitch. ALL KINDLE VERSE BOOKS I'VE SEEN SO FAR HAVE SOME OR ALL OF THESE FAILINGS. The problem is systemic: Kindle can't handle verse yet. The rule would seem to be, don't buy poets on Kindle.

It's good to bring together the histories, particularly the eight plays in the Wars of the Roses series along with the sonnets and other poems. This book is not an authoritative academic edition like the Riverside. It has very limited text notes at the end of the book, not easy to navigate and leaving a lot of questions unanswered. It has no introductory or commentary material, either on Shakespeare himself or the histories as a series. The great advantage of this edition is that it's small and light and comprehensive. After all, you don't want to lug the Riverside on an airplane.