Shakespeare, W: Complete Works

Preface; J.Bate General Introduction; J.Bate A User's Guide Preliminary pages of the First Folio Foreword; M.Boyd, Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: COMPLETE WORKS For each play: Individual introduction by Jonathan Bate On-page footnote gloss which explains unfamiliar or obsolete words and classical, biblical or contemporary references where WS assumes audience knowledge Appendices of any significant passages that are not in First Folio 'Key Facts' box with: plot summary, major roles, date, linguistic medium, sources, textual notes COMEDIES The Tempest The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Merry Wives of Windsor Measure for Measure The Comedy of Errors Much Ado about Nothing Love's Labour's Lost A Midsummer Night's Dream The Merchant of Venice As You Like It The Taming of the Shrew All's Well that Ends Well Twelfth Night, or What You Will The Winter's Tale HISTORIES The Life and Death of King John The Life and Death of King Richard the Second The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry surnamed Hotspur The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, containing his Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth The Life of Henry the Fifth The First Part of Henry the Sixth The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Duke of York The Tragedy of Richard the Third, with the Landing of Earl Richmond and the Battle at Bosworth Field The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth TRAGEDIES The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida The Tragedy of Coriolanus The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet The Life of Timon of Athens The Tragedy of Julius Caesar The Tragedy of Macbeth The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark The Tragedy of King Lear The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra The Tragedy of Cymbeline PLAYS NOT IN THE FIRST FOLIO Pericles, Prince of Tyre, by

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.

'This new Complete Works from the RSC is a glorious edition of one of the world's most important books. It's the essential reference book for anyone who's ever been in love, felt jealousy, fear, hatred, or desire. All human life is here - and every home should have one.' - Dame Judi Dench 'Timely, original, and beautifully conceived, the RSC edition makes Shakespeare's extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.' - James Shapiro, Professor, Columbia University and prize-winning author of 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare 'Bate provides excellent introductory essays to each play and his terrific introduction, simply and effectively summarising everything you need to know about Shakespeare, man and work, is alone worth buying the edition for.' - The Daily Express 'Thanks to Bate and Rasmussen, we now have a rendering of the Complete Works that, in a rare publishing achievement, would also give complete satisfaction to the author himself.' - Robert McCrum, The Observer 'A magnificent new volume.' - A. N. Wilson, Daily Telegraph 'A triumphant addition to our times.' - Fiona Shaw, The Times 'This outstanding new edition of Shakespeare's plays is the closest yet to the originals ... a new and thoroughly radical edition ... supervised by Jonathan Bate, an outstanding scholar (and author of the best existing biography of Shakespeare) who writes with as much elegance as insight about the making of theatre and the creation of the plays... an impeccably informative introduction gives a comprehensive theatrical, social, political and biographical context to the plays. There are pithy essays, also by Bate, to introduce each play as well as exemplary notes at the foot of each page which translate verbal and topical obscurities ... for actors and directors it will be incomparably useful, but for any curious reader of Shakespeare's plays it provides an invaluable guide to reading them not as novels or dramatic poems, but as they were intended to be read: