Synopses & Reviews
FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY
The World’s Leading Center for Shakespeare Studies
The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, brings Romeo and Juliet to life with this new full-length, full-cast dramatic recording of its definitive Folger Edition.
In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare creates a tragic world in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. This play, set in an extraordinary world, has become the quintessential story of young love.
This new full-cast recording—based on the most respected edition of Shakespeare’s classic—expertly produced by the Folger Theatre, is perfect for students, teachers, and the everyday listener.
About the Author
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—their older daughter, Susanna, and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent, not in Stratford, but in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He had a successful career in London as a playwright and actor and was a shareholder in the acting company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He produced most of his plays between 1589 and 1613. Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare is thought to have retired from the stage and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616.