"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate ..." Shakespeare's 154 sonnets contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, dealing with eternal themes such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by time. Thi[...]

Combines scholarship with editorial material. This work includes a foreword, list of contents, general introduction, essay on language, contemporary allusions to Shakespeare, glossary, consolidated bibliography, and an index of first lines of Sonnets.[...]

Hamlet's combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare's tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays. Professor Hibbard's illuminating and original introduction explains the process by which varia[...]

When Claudio breaks the new laws against vice in Vienna by getting his financee, Julietta, pregnant, a series of ethical issues is brought under scrutiny. His sister's virtue is held to ransom by the deputy rule of the city until justice is done, mercy shown, and order restored. This is among Shake[...]

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers - A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings - Extensive introd[...]

The Winter's Tale is Shakespeare's most fully realized tragicomedy, noted for the richness and complexity of its poetry. Though the title may suggest an escapist fantasy, recent criticism has seen in the play a profoundly realistic psychology and a keen commentary on the violence implicit in family [...]

The introduction reviews the few known facts about this early Shakespeare play and discusses the puzzling problems of its date and authorship. The text has been freshly edited with the aim of presenting the play as revised for the first recorded performance in 1594, with the addition of stage busine[...]

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the works for modern readers - a new, modern-spelling text, based on the 1623 Folio text - on-page commentary and notes explain[...]

Henry V, the climax of Shakespeare's sequence of English history plays, is an inspiring, often comic celebration of a young warrior-king. But it is also a study of the costly exhilarations of war, and of the penalties as well as the glories of human greatness. Introducing this brilliantly innovativ[...]

This new edition of Richard II in the acclaimed Oxford Shakespeare series features a freshly edited version of the text, extensive commentary, lively illustrations, and a wide-ranging introduction covering the play's historical contexts, political significance, language, and stage history.[...]