The Complete Pelican Shakespeare

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The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series has sold five million copies. Now Penguin is proud to offer this fully revised new hardcover edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare.

Since the series debuted more than forty years ago, developments in scholarship have revolutionized our understanding of William Shakespeare, his time, and his works. With new editors who have incorporated the most up-to-date research and debate, this revised edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare will be the premier choice for students, professors, and general readers for decades to come.

The general editors of the series: world-renowned Shakespeareans Stephen Orgel of Stanford University and A. R. Braunmuller of UCLA: devoted seven years to preparing introductions and notes with a team of eminent scholars to the forty volumes of Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Now, the new series is complete and available in one lavish and complete edition.

* Authoritative and meticulously researched texts
* Illuminating new introductions and notes by distinguished authors
* Essays on Shakespeare’s life, the theatrical world of his time, and the selection of texts
* A handsome new design inside and out
* Deluxe packaging, including a full-linen case, ribbon marker, Smyth-sewn binding, printed endpapers, acid-free paper, and illustrations throughout
* Photos and drawings reflecting Shakespeare’s theatrical legacy
* Line numbers marking every tenth line and footnote references
* Both glossorial and explanatory notes appearing conveniently at the foot of the page

1824 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1623

About the author

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William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

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