Synopses & Reviews
Widely considered Shakespeare’s most intellectually challenging comedy,
Love's Labour’s Lost nevertheless offers a feast of broad, farcical humor, plot twists, Elizabethan cultural allusions, and irrepressibly clever turns-of-phrase.
Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts and authoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Each play includes an Introduction as well as an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; a chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; and black-and-white illustrations.
Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.
Praise for William Shakespeare: Complete Works
“A remarkable edition, one that makes Shakespeare’s extraordinary accomplishment more vivid than ever.”
–James Shapiro, professor, Columbia University, bestselling author of A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599
“Two eminent Shakespeareans . . . have applied modern editing techniques and recent scholarship to correct and update the First Folio. . . . Superb.”
–The New York Times
“A feast of literary and historical information.”
–The Wall Street Journal
“I look forward to using it over many years, enjoying Bate’s perceptive comments, trusting Rasmussen’s textual scholarship.”
–Peter Holland, president of the Shakespeare Association of America and editor of Shakespeare Survey
Synopsis
Shakespeare's First Folio is a modern term applied by scholars to one of the world's most famous books, Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays--and one of the highlights of the British Library. Published in folio form seven years after the playwright's death by Isaac Iaggard and Edward Blount, and overseen by Shakespeare's fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell, the First Folio contains the text of thirty-six plays, half of which had not been previously published during the Bard's lifetime. At last, readers had the plays as they were actually performed, where before, the editors wrote, you were abused with diverse, stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious imposters. . . . Sold for one pound each at the time, this remarkable collection is invaluable to our understanding of the playwright and our conception of his canon.
The British Library and the Globe Theatre in London have worked together to produce a series of affordable and beautifully reproduced facsimile editions of individual plays from the book, beginning with Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Love's Labour's Lost, In addition to the text for each play, each title will include copies of the preliminary pages from the Folio--including the famous engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout and an introduction to each individual work by Anthony James West. This exciting new series presents the authentic First Folio manuscripts in a collectible format, an eventful publication for the general reader and Shakespearean scholar alike.
Synopsis
A continuation of the major series of individual Shakespeare plays from the world renowned Royal Shakespeare Company, edited by two brilliant, younger generation Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric RasmussenIncorporating definitive text and cutting-edge notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works-the first authoritative, modernized edition of Shakespeare's First Folio in more than 300 years-this remarkable series of individual plays combines Jonathan Bate's insightful critical analysis with Eric Rasmussen's textual expertise.
Synopsis
A continuation of the major series of individual Shakespeare plays from the world renowned Royal Shakespeare Company, edited by two brilliant, younger generation Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric RasmussenIncorporating definitive text and cutting-edge notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works-the first authoritative, modernized edition of Shakespeare's First Folio in more than 300 years-this remarkable series of individual plays combines Jonathan Bate's insightful critical analysis with Eric Rasmussen's textual expertise.
About the Author
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) is today's most widely known and loved playwright.
THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY (RSC) is a world-renowned ensemble theater company in Stratford and London dedicated to bringing the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries to a modern audience.
JONATHAN BATE is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, Bate's books on Shakespeare include Soul of the Age.
ERIC RASMUSSEN, professor of English at the University of Nevada, is one of today's leading textual experts on Shakespeare.