Read and studied many of the plays in Ralph Williams brilliant course at the University of Michigan.

An excellent compilation of criticism, history, and literature - a complete yet compact anthology with ample research aids and helpful bibliographies.

Some people have teddy bears. I have my mom's college copy of the Riverside, and it sleeps by my bed. It's been scarred by life, covered in notes, doodled and dropped, the cover's halfway off, and I wouldn't replace it for the world.

The definitive collection of The Works, now with more incorrect information provided by Don Foster.

I've read this twice. Once as a teenage girl and again as a thirty year old adult, same edition. Shakespeare remains a true masterpiece. Some I liked better than others, but all were very good. King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, A Midsummers Nights Dream, Twelfth Night some of my favorites to name but a few. It took me two weeks to read this but I forgot to mark when I started this. I'm giving this a 4.5 ⭐ rounded up. Bravo!

It is impossible when holding this book, which weighs about 12 lbs., not to feel like a mentally challenged illiterate. All of Shakespeare's works, the comedies, the tragedies, and even the damn sonnets are included in this volume. Yet every time I open it up and read just one page, I am intimidated beyond belief and put the door stop back on the shelf. One day I will read Hamlet...one day.

Read "Twelfth Night" specifically. Not quite light bedtime reading but funny regardless.

A must read in you have any interest in seriously studying Literature, drama or comedy.

***I normally use my Riverside Shakespeare solely as a reference text, preferring the Everyman series for its ease of portability and short but helpful introductions. But I think it's only recently that the Two Noble Kinsmen has become an accepted part of the canon of Shakespeare, and hence does not appear in the Everyman series.***

A play at the end of Shakespeare's career, and one that was not even entirely his own, but shared with John Fletcher. And yet, it's a wonderful retelling of Chaucer's Knight's Tale. The questions of platonic and romantic relationships, chivalry and selfishness, the state and the individual, are just a few of the ones probed by both playwrights in this play.

"Our hearts / Are in his army, in his tent." (I.iii.16-17)

"I am not / Against your faith, yet I continue mine." (I.iii.97-98)

"That no man but thy cousin's fit to kill thee." (III.vi.43)

***This is also the case for Edward III, which apparently only entered the canon in the 1990s.***

"And where he sets his foot he ought to kneel." (I.i.81)

"To hear war beautified by her discourse.
Wisdom is foolishness but in her tongue,
Beauty a slander but in her fair face:
There is no summer but in her cheerful looks,
Nor frosty winter but in her disdain."
II.i.39-43

"Devise for fair a fairer word than fair."
II.i.85

"What, thinkest thou I did bid thee praise a horse?"
II.i.98

"In violating marriage' sacred law
You break a greater honor than yourself"
II.i.260-261

"We have more sons
Than one to comfort our declining age."
III.iv.23-24

"If we fear not, then no resolved proffer
Can overthrow the limit of our fate:
For whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,
As we do draw the lottery of our doom."
IV.v.146-149

"Ah, what an idiot hast thou made of life,
To seek the thing it fears; and how disgrac'd
The imperial victory of murd'ring Death!"
IV.v. 151-154

"Since for to live is but to seek to die,
And dying but beginning of new life."
IV.v.159-160

"For I do hold a tree in France too good
To be the gallows of an English thief."
IV.v. 63-64

"Thy fortune, not thy force, hath conquer'd us.
An argument that heaven aids the right."
IV.ix.9-10

I love this collection and I used this at University. It was damn heavy to log around but was a wonderful resource because of the detailed explanations and translations for some of the out dated terms used by Shakespeare in his plays. It is still proudly displayed on my "public" library book shelf at home ( my romance novels are in a special hidden storage room ). I loved the layout of the collection and the fact that each play and each section were prefaced by concise, analytical essays of introduction. There were lovely little illustrations for the plays as well. I think I studied only about 4 history plays, all the tragedies, all the comedies, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatry and a couple of the "problem plays". I never actually got around to studying the poems although I did read through a few of his lovely sonnets. My favourite play from Shakespeare will always be Much Ado About Nothing because I love Benedict so much and Beatrice was such a strong female character. I love Hamlet the most from among the tragedies because he was such a sexy tragic bastard and Shakespeare was a boss with his use of the Garden of Eden metaphor in that play. Lol. I wished Hamlet could have made his mind up already, though ! And I hated how poor Ophelia lost the will to live after he told her to go to a nunnery. Othello was probably the precursor for many a jealous obsessive asshole Harlequin Presents hero. Macbeth was too much of a p***y whipped asshole and King Lear's senile vanity was a bit too much to take at times. I preferred Julius Caesar to Antony and Cleopatra because there was more intrigue to analyze. And I will always have a special love for The Tempest because it's so epic ! I've always said that when I have a daughter I shall probably name her Miranda or Ariel.

I'm not sure I can say I've "read" The Riverside Shakespeare, because I haven't exactly read it cover to cover. I still haven't read "Pericles", "Two Gentlemen of Verona", or "Titus Andronicus". Or "The Comedy of Errors", or "Richard II" -- shameful, I know. But this was my textbook in college, through however many Shakespeare classes I managed to take, and I feel as though I've read it all.

Recently read:
Hamlet (January/February 2008)--fifth reading--This time around Elsinore, Gertrude is a stupid cow and that Ophelia was fortunate she never had to have Gertie as her mother-in-law. Gert's just oblivious to so many things. Ophelia is obedient, but at least (and tragically) knows what's what. As I get older, I lose respect/adoration/sympathy for Hamlet the Junior.

Titus Andronicus (January/February 2008)--first & second reading--Too much maligned and underrated. Now ranks as one of my favorites; there are many riches to explore in _TA_.