William Shakespeare

A dramatization by Shakespeare of King Henry VI's early days as king and the beginning of the long civil wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster. In the war with France, England is being driven off French soil. True to the popular view of the time, the French heroine Joan of Arc is characterized as a "minister of hell" and a wanton.

King Cymbeline's evil second queen forces the king to banish his daughter Imogen's husband, Posthumus. While the queen tries to force Imogen to marry her own son, Posthumus flees to Rome. There he is tricked into believing Imogen has been unfaithful. Imogen disguises herself as a boy and flees the court.

Shakespeare's play about Richard of Gloucester, a self-proclaimed villian who usurps the crown. Through family machinations, political marriages and military coups, this play portrays the tumultous reign of King Edward IV and the ascension of Richard to the throne, an intricate period in English history.

The Prince of Tyre is pursued by the vengeance of King Antiochus because he discovered the monarch's incestuous relationship with his daughter. Fleeing from place to place, Pericles is shipwrecked, courts, and marries Thaisa. Their child, Marina, raised by friends when Thaisa is believed to have died, is kidnapped by pirates and sold into a brothel before Thaisa is discovered alive and the family is joyfully reunited.

This romance revolves around a theme that occupied Shakespeare later in life: reconciliation. Wrongs committed by one generation--here a wife unjustly accused of adultery--are made right by the next generation.

A dramatization of Shakespeare's famous play which explores the calamitous consequences of an overwhelming passion by telling the story of Antony, the once-heralded leader who becomes stupified with passion and degenerates into a fool, and the multi-faceted Cleopatra.

Claudio and Hero are engaged, but the jealous Don John tries to thwart the wedding by denouncing Hero as unchaste. Meanwhile, Beatrice and Benedick, who scorn each other, become betrothed as a result of the schemes of their friends.

Jealousy in love is one of the most common of human emotions. In Othello, Shakespeare combines this universal theme with perfectly structured scenes, a storyline that lingers in the memory and a prime example of a tragic hero, Othello himself. The result is perhaps his greatest triumph as a stage play. When the evil Iago plants the seeds of doubt in Othello's mind about Desdemona's fidelity, audiences around the world have been held spellbound.

This edition includes edited text based on the best early printed version of the play, with full explanatory notes, scene-by-scene plot summaries, and a key to famous lines and passages that make the Bard come to life for all readers.