Shakespeare on Love [Hardcover]

Simon Callow (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2000

A selection of Shakespeare's work focusing on the theme of love. From the passion of the sonnets, the poignant balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet to the bewitched love scene between Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, this anthology cuts across age and class, taboo and prohibition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One for the bedside table - if a bloke can't woo a wench with a copy of this stuffed down his tights, he'd be as well getting himself along to a nunnery Manchester Evening News

About the Author

Simon Callow is a highly acclaimed actor, director and author. As well as his theatre and television work, he has made film appearances in Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral, A Room with a View and Amadeus. His books include biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. He played London's West End and toured the UK and America with his award-winning one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Frances Lincoln (April 6, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711215359
• ISBN-13: 978-0711215351
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,838,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.