The Works of William Shakespeare [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Alexander Dyce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1142378497 | ISBN-13: 978-1142378493

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 362 pages
• Publisher: Nabu Press (January 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1142378497
• ISBN-13: 978-1142378493
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for the Kindle, February 23, 2008

By 

S. Rudge - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Works: William Shakespeare (Kindle Edition)

I'm not sure what the previous reviewer is talking about. This edition has a complete Table of Contents which not only allows you to navigate to each individual play, but also to each act and then each individual scene.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for in a KINDLE Shakespeare collection. Every other version I've tried has been a terrible waste of money and I wonder how long it's going to be before Amazon starts acting responsibly and deleting the worthless e-text versions of this and other collections or offering trial samples of every book listed so people will stop being ripped off.

The only improvement I could see is for the table of contents and the individual listings to be justified on the right side of the screen next to the Kindle cursor, but the spacing is wide enough between lines that this is really just quibbling. I would like to see every Kindle book with this simple modification.

1.0 out of 5 stars Lacks proper line breaks, January 8, 2012

By 

A. W. "amazon6808" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Works of William Shakespeare (Kindle Edition)

I downloaded the sample chapter of this e-book, and immediately noticed two things. First, it's not properly using the Kindle "table of contents" feature. While there is a page near the front of the book that says "Table of Contents" on top and has links to the contents of the book, if you load up the Kindle's "Go to..." feature the "table of contents" button is grayed out, so they must not have tagged their table of contents page correctly.

Secondly, and much more importantly, there are no line breaks after the individual lines of dialogue in the play. Shakespeare's plays are mostly composed in iambic pentameter, and these iambic pentameter sections are almost always printed like poetry, with a line break after each "line" of five iambic feet, so that you can discern the meter more easily. In the sample chapter of this book, there are no such line breaks, and all the dialogue runs together into paragraphs. Having the line breaks in the right place is one of the baseline requirements for an edition of Shakespeare, so I give this one star.

If the publisher revises the book to correct these two features, then it'll be worth taking a second look at this edition. Otherwise, avoid it.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, May 6, 2009

By 

Victor Hugo - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Works of William Shakespeare (Paperback)

The book that I received was not the one that I ordered on Amazon.com. The book cover and the content of the book is not anything like the book that I ordered. The only thing that is the same is the title of the book. On the book that I received there are only stones on the book cover, on the book advertised from the website there is a chair.

I went back to Amazon.com and double checked the book that I ordered and this is not it. I bought this book for the sole purpose of having a collection of Shakespeare's works. The book that I recieved was only Shakespeare's work from Cymbeline and Timon of Atens. This book was advertised on the Amazon.com website to have "Includes a Huge Collection of the Comedies, History, Poems, Romances, Tragedies, and works of William Shakespeare." The book that I received only includs two works from Shakespeare.