Twelfth Night (Bantam Classic)

Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy devises a romantic plot around separated twins, misplaced passions, and mistaken identity. Juxtaposed to it is the satirical story of a self-deluded steward who dreams of becoming “Count Malvolio” only to receive his comeuppance at the hands of the merrymakers he wishes to suppress. The two plots combine to create a farce touched with melancholy, mixed throughout with seductively beautiful explorations on the themes of love and time, and the play ends, not with laughter, but with a clown’s sad song.

Each Edition Includes:

• Comprehensive explanatory notes

• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship

• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English

• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories

• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

Each Edition Includes:

• Comprehensive explanatory notes

• Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship

• Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English

• Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories

• An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. In London, Shakespeare became the principal playwright and shareholder of the successful acting troupe the Lord Chamberlin's men (later, under James I, called the King's men) which built and occupied the Globe theater. In 1616, he died in Stratford after having written 37 plays, sonnets, and other poetry which would become crucial to the cannon of English literature.

DAVID SCOTT KASTAN,editor, is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of SHAKESPEARE AND THE BOOK (Cambridge, 2001), SHAKESPEARE AFTER THEORY (Routledge, 1999) and he is the editor of A COMPANION TO SHAKESPEARE (1999), and co-editor of THE NEW HISTORY OF EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA (1998 award winner for the best book on theater history). He is general editor of the Arden Shakespeare (the first American ever to serve in this capacity in the Arden's hundred-plus year history). He serves on the board of the Folger Institute, the executive committee of the MLA Division on the Teaching of Literature, and on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals. Kastan is the Chair of the English Department at Columbia, and in 2000 he won the University's Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching and in 2004 became the first winner of the Faculty Mentoring Award.

DAVID BEVINGTON, editor, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1959. He has been teaching at The University of Chicago since 1967. He is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature, in the Committee on General studies, and Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities. He is the director of undergraduate studies in comparative literature. He was one of three editors of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF BEN JONSON (Cambridge UP, 2003), senior editor of THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF RENAISSANCE DRAMA (2002), senior editor of the Revels series, and senior editor of the Revels students editions. He edited THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE, HarperCollins, fifth edition (Longman, 2003).