Maybe it's because of all the renewed interest in Shakespeare suddenly, but suddenly I feel like making everybody I know (with a sense of humour) read this absolutely delightful book I must have read in high school! 40 years ago. I feel terrible when bookstores say they've never heard of him. How thrilling to know there are many Richard Armour fans like me out there! I remember so many gags still- especially from Macbeth. Also Ït all started with Eve"--Must get them someday!!

This book was hilarious! I read this right after reading MacBeth in my second year of high school. I could not stop laughing! Lucky for me, the school library was going to throw this book out, so I asked if I could have it. Four years later, I am still laughing. I highly recommend this book!

How many times have you burst out laughing when forced to read Shakespeare for an english assignment? And how many times would you actually pick up a book with the dreaded word 'Shakespeare' on it willingly? While staying at a bed and breakfast in Newburyport, I came across the last scene of "Midsummer Night's Dream" being performed in the park. When I returned to the b&b, I was browsing through the shelves of the library when I found this book. I read the previously mentioned play and Romeo and Juliet. Armour makes them easy to understand and also hilarious! He has the rare talent of being able to take the untouchable classics, edit out the unneccessary, and add some unique pizazz. This book recieves my highest recommendation. I have also read his book of light verse, and it is just as enjoyable. This book, as well as his others, are worth the effort to find them out of print.

I couldn't have asked for a more concise and easy to use tool for all ages. The book is complete with the pronunciations for not only the innumerable amount of questionable words in Shakespeare, but it also has a summary of how language was used in each of Shakespeare's plays, as well as a complete Latin section for all of those impossible to pronounce phrases. This will prevent all the disagreements and arguments that are caused as a result of differing opinions on Shakespeare's pronunciation. It levels out the playing field of Sir William for a price that won't hurt your pockets, in a size that won't hurt your back, and a format that won't hurt your brain. Well worth the investment!

After 4 centuries, it's about time a book like this came along! God knows how much time I've wasted, in rehearsal with or reading one of Shakespeare's plays, arguing with myself and others about how to say a word. This book clears everything up. It is to a scholar/actor of Shakespeare what Gray's Anatomy is to a medical student.

It's also helpful for reading verse. I've dusted off tons of old books at libraries, looking for basic explanations of Shakespeare's verse. They seem to be written by authors who either have never taught other human beings (i.e., actors) or who think it is foolishly elementary to explain the basic concepts of verse in a way the average reader can understand. The authors of "All the Words on Stage" demystify iambic pantameter and relieve the tension felt when trying to unpack Shakespeare's heightened language.

It's more than a pronouncing dictionary. It's a bible!

For years, actors, directors, and dramaturgs have struggled with a variety of materials for guidance on the pronunciation of Shakespeare's names, along with a multitude of other resources that helped with the pronunciation of obscure words appearing in his plays. Now Shane Ann Younts and Louis Scheeder, who work in the rehearsal studio with this text every day, have put everything - names plus unfamiliar words - into one easy-to-carry book, with phonetic pronunciations that are so easy to read that they can be instantly applied. This is a groundbreaking work for everyone involved in the rehearsal process of Shakespeare's plays. Every Shakespeare actor or student should own a copy, and no rehearsal table should lack one or three copies for easy reference during every stage of the rehearsal process! Thank-you Shane Ann and Louis, for creating a terrific tool to assist us in this day-to-day process of moving the words off the page in order to bring them to life on the stage. Bravo!!!

Berkman's stories give us a multifaceted prism--"the women he loved"--through which to view Shakespeare's works and days. In Duty, we get a glimpse of the secrets Juliet's mother must hide, giving broader dimensions to the classic love story. No Cause reminds us that the people in the Bard's sublunary life were real, with needs more immediate than the call of mere literature. My favorite story (Magic Wand) has Titania bridging these worlds with an Orlando-esque sweep through time and levels of reality (which is more real--the midsummer fairy world Shakespeare created or the world that buys Globe Theatre keychains?), portraying a muse who must be written in order to live and who must live to enable a writer to create lives. These little gems are witty and thoughtful; I look forward to a deeper novel from this young author.

To read *Her Infinite Variety* is to be dazzled by Pamela Berkman's imaginative capacity. From story to story, she displays a rare ability to intuit the gaps in our knowledge of Shakespeare's women--the ones in his life as well as the ones in his art--and then to fill in those gaps with the delicate filigree of her fiction. Yet while these stories display a delicately rigorous structure, the language holding them together is as vibrant and sexy as the women they depict. If you have never enjoyed Shakespeare, buy this book. Berkman's tart-tongued Titania, her haunted Ophelia, and her utterly down-to-earth Bard (rescued, finally, from both scholars and souvenir-sellers) will make you reconsider.

Pamela Berkman's Her Infinite Variety is a clever/humorous/insightful blend of a few facts and a lot of fiction. It is a fictional treatment of the lives of the women of Shakespeare. Six of the stories are about the women in his life, and four the women of his plays. Or we might say that three about women of his plays and one about a fairy -- Titania.

Ms Berkman has done all of the work required for historic fiction: she writes of everything from the laws of the time to the family linen. To this she has added an inspired imagination and outstanding writing.

The result is an excellent collection of linked stories -- it almost adds up to a novel about Shakespear. She has taken what little we know of these figures and constructed plausible, fascinating, three-dimensional women.

I would have entitled this review "Her Infinite Imagination," but someone has already used it.

The sonnet is one of the more difficult-to-write forms of poetry, with very strict rules on rhyming and lines, and that makes Shakespeare's collection of sonnets all the more impressive. Shakespeare sprinkled his various plays with poetry and songs, but there is something of a different flavor to these works.

Titleless, identified only by numbers, these poems have vivid metaphors and imagery ("let not winter's ragged hand deface," "gold candles fix'd in heaven's air"). The tone of the poetry varies from one sonnet to the next; sometimes it focuses on old age, to love that "looks upon tempests and is not shaken," and simple expressions that can't really be interpreted any other way. Some of it is pretty well-known ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate") but most of them you won't have seen before.

Even if you're not normally a fan of poetry, the delicate touch of Shakespeare's words is worth checking into. Fantastic.

This edition of the sonnets is one of the most important and the description on Amazon is misleading - It is actually both volumes 24 and 25 bound together so you get the complete set It's hard to find this book so it is a great find in this version

Shakespeare's amazing Sonnets are compiled here in this wonderful volume, a great addition to anyone's bookshelf. If you love Shakespeare, then this is a must-have book.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare edited by David Bevington

Bevington's edition of Shakespeare's plays is a popular choice, and not without good reason. But that doesn't make an ideal choice. The introduction to this one volume edition is ample with chapters on life in Shakespeare's England, the drama before Shakespeare, Shakespeare's life and work. These are good, but they tend to rely on older scholarship and they may not be current. For example Bevington repeats Hinman's claim that there were 1200 copies of the 1623 Folio printed. However later scholars think the number was quite a bit lower, around 750. It should be said that we don't know for sure how many copies of the 1623 folio were printed and either number could be correct.

Bevington's edition prints the plays by genre. We get a section of Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, Romances and the Poems. He puts "Troilus and Cressida" with the comedies, though we know the play was slated to appear with the tragedies in the 1623 folio. The play was never meant to appear with the comedies, and all the surviving Folios that have the play have it at the beginning of the tragedies.

Let's get down to brass tacks. You are not going to buy an edition of Shakespeare's works because of good introduction. You're going to buy one because the quality of the editing of the plays. Is it reliable? Is it accurate? For the most part this edition is reliable and accurate, but that does not mean it is accurate and reliable in every instance.

Modernized editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems are norm. Since the 18th century (and even before) editors of Shakespeare have modernized and regularized Shakespeare's plays and poems. There are good reasons for this modernization. There is the reader's ease of use and the correcting misprints and mislination. I have no problem with this regularization of spelling or punctuation. But when an editor goes beyond normalizing and modernizing--when an editor interferes with the text then I have a problem.

Let me give two examples of the editorial interference that I am writing about:

King Lear 2-1-14 (p. 1184)
Bevington has:
Edmund
The Duke be here tonight? The better! Best!
This weaves itself perforce into my business.

The Folio has:
Bast. The Duke be here to night? The better best,
This weaues it selfe perforce into my businesse,

Even allowences made for modernization of punctuation and grammar would not account for Bevington's "The better! Best." Bevington glosses this to mean "so much the better; in fact the best that could happen." Nice try, but "The better best" of the folio is a double comparative, (which is a regular feature of Early Modern English) and not two separate adjectival phrases. Interestingly, the Quarto printing of Lear prints this scene in prose, and there is no punctuation between "better" and "best" in that version either.

A few lines down Lear 2-1-19 Edmund continues
Bevington has:
Brother, a word. Descend. Brother, I say!
Enter Edgar

But Bevington has reversed the order. The Folio has:
Enter Edgar.
Brother, a word, discend; Brother I say,

Bevington does not say why he changed the order, though to be fair other modern editors have done the same thing.

These two changes just a few lines apart go beyond regularization or modernization. They interfere with the text as presented in the 1623 Folio. And Bevington does not explain the changes. So next time you pick up this or any other modernized edition you should ask yourself "am I really sure what I'm reading is what Shakespeare wrote?"

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. Updated Fourth Edition. Edited by David Bevington. 2000 pp. New York : Longman, 1997. ISBN 0-321-01254-2 (hbk.)

As complete Shakespeares go, the Bevington would seem have everything. Its book-length Introduction covers Life in Shakespeare's England; The Drama Before Shakespeare; London Theaters and Dramatic Companies; Shakespeare's Life and Work; Shakespeare's Language : His Development as Poet and Dramatist; Edition and Editors of Shakespeare; Shakespeare Criticism.

The texts follow in groups : Comedies; Histories; Tragedies; Romances (including 'The Two Noble Kinsmen'); Poems. Each play is given a separate Introduction adequate to the needs of a beginner, and the excellent and helpful brief notes at the bottom of each page, besides explaining individual words and lines, provide stage directions to help readers visualize the plays.

One extremely useful feature of the layout is that instead of being given the usual style of line numbering - 10, 20, 30, etc. - numbers occur _only_ at the end of lines which have been given footnotes - e.g., 9, 12, 16, 18, 32. Why no-one seems to have thought of doing this before I don't know, but it's a wonderful innovation that does away entirely with the tedious and time-wasting hassle of line counting, and the equally time-wasting frustration of searching through footnotes only to find that no note exists. If the line has a note you will know at once, and the notes are easy for the eye to locate as the keywords preceeding notes are in bold type.

The book - which is rounded out with three Appendices, a Royal Genealogy of England, Maps, Bibliography, Suggestions for Reading and Research, Textual Notes, Glossary of common words, and Index - also includes a 16-page section of striking color photographs.

The book is excellently printed in a semi-bold font that is exceptionally sharp, clear, and easy to read despite the show-through of its thin paper. It is a large heavy volume of full quarto size, stitched so that it opens flat, and bound, not with cloth, but with a soft decorative paper which wears out quickly at the edges and corners.

If it had been printed on a slightly better paper and bound in cloth, the Bevington would have been perfect. As it is, it's a fine piece of book-making nevertheless, and has been edited in such a way as to make the reading of Shakespeare as hassle-free and enjoyable an experience as possible. Strongly recommended for students and the general reader.

Last year for Christmas I asked my parents for some William Shakespeare's plays.Boy was I suprised!Not only does it have all of the plays,but also his Sonats,poems,and illistrations.Despite the fact that it's a large valuem and will need quite a bit off book space from you're self.You wont regret getting it.You will never need to get another book on William Shakespeare's plays and everything else ever again.It also has a list of dictonary for understanding the words better.

I have seen the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform this play and these guys are absolutely hysterical! This book provides a side splitting look at Shakespeare in all his glory and wretched excess.

Despise reading Shakespeare? Not to worry, as the RSC introduce you to Shakespeare in a variety of hilarious ways - via a cooking show, a football game, even a rap song! Indifferent to Shakespeare? Well, don't you worry either. The RSC cover the Bard's plays and sonnets in ways you'd never imagine, prior knowledge of the plot becomes unnecessary. Love reading Shakespeare? Then you'll still enjoy this book!

Plus, there are brilliantly clever footnotes (I've always hated them before, but I loved these!), funny forewords and humorous pictures. This book is brilliant and funny and worth every penny!! Buy it!

I am a actor and performer in high school and I often compete in the literary circuit. This piece alone has won me several awards. I recommend it to any aspiring actors who need a piece to start on or any established actors who need something new. It is also great for an entertaning read or for high school Shakespeare students who need a new twist on the Bard (especially the view of Hamlet as a meat allegory!)

If I were asked the funniest play that read I would answer "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)." Now I can answer the same if I were asked the funniest book I have ever read. All hail to Jess Winfield, Daniel Singer, and Adam Long! The gang has sucessfully written a very intricate and accurate book of William Shakespeare and his complete works. Wait -- they have distorted and sucessfully gutted some of the most perfect pieces of literature ever written and it is absolutely perfect. While reading the book make sure to take the time to read ALL the footnotes. You will really appreciate the tactful placement of every irreverent word and insite into the life and works of William Shakespeare that Jess, Adam, Jess, Daniel, and Jess have. Definately a must read and certianly a must see.

Written by Shakespeare for Queen Elizabeth I amidst a time of Irish rebellion, Henry V more than adequately serves its intended purpose of galvanizing nationalistic fervor. It proved itself to be an unwavering and unfaltering impetus of patriotism in Shakespeare's day, during WWII, and still today it continues to resonate and reverberate this provocatively telling tale of the most gloriously revered monarch in English history.

Henry V's stirring orations prior to the victorious battles of Harfleur("Once more unto the breach") and Agincourt("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers") astonish and inspire me every time I read them. Simply amazing. Having read Henry IV Parts I&II beforehand, I was surprised Shakespeare failed to live up to his word in the Epilogue of Part II in which he promised to "continue the story, with Sir John in it." The continuing follies of the conniving Bardolph, Nym, & Pistol and their ignominious thieving prove to be somewhat of a depricating underplot which nevertheless proves to act as a succinct metaphor for King Harry's "taking" of France.

Powerful and vibrant, the character of Henry V evokes passion and unadulterated admiration through his incredible valor & strength of conviction in a time of utter despondency. It is this conviction and passion which transcends time, and moreover, the very pages that Shakespeare's words are written upon. I find it impossible to overstate the absolute and impregnable puissance of Henry V, a play which I undoubtedly rate as the obligatory cream of the crop of Shakespeare's Histories. I recommend reading Henry IV I&II prior to Henry V as well as viewing Kenneth Branagh's masterpiece film subsequent to reading the equally moving work.

I looked long and hard (and asked many a scholar) for the "perfect" Shakespeare publication that I might purchase to study "King Henry V" (for a experiential education requirement, I had undertaken the translation of Henry V into American Sign Language). The Arden Shakespeare came highly recommended by everyone, and has lived up entirely to all its rave reviews.

I will never buy Shakespeare from another publisher. While these books may be slightly more expensive than a "mass market" edition, I believe that if you are going to take the time to read and understand Shakespeare, it is well worth the extra dollar or two. The Introduction, the images, and plethora of footnotes are irreplaceable and nearly neccessary for a full understanding of the play (for those of us who are not scholars already). The photocopy of the original Quatro text in the appendix is also very interesting.

All in all, well worth it! I recommend that you buy ALL of Shakespeare's work from Arden's critical editions.

On D-Day British officers read Henry's famous words to their men as they approached the beach. When Churchill needed material for his famous "Few" speech, his thoughts turned to the pages of Henry V. From "once more into the breach" to "we happy few, we band of brothers" this play resonates with Shakespeare's paen to England's warrior king. Oh, you'll be a bit confused at the start if you haven't read Henry IV parts 1 and 2, but this is primarily the story of Henry V's victory at Agincourt. Whether the play glorifies war or just Henry you will have to decide. There is much food for thought here for the perceptive reader. But then Shakespeare is always provocative.

This was the most enjoyable book I've read in quite some time. A rare and wonderfully detailed account of one young man's coming of age in Stratford, Connecticut. Not your standard sexual awakening tales. No, this is a story of a spiritual awakening - a discovered kinship with Shakespeare and the Muses of comedy and tragedy. Bob Smith tells his story with compassion, wit and elegance. He doesn't shy away from the troubling memories of dealing with a mentally impaired sibling, nor the profound impact she had on his life and the lives of his parents. What the reader is left with is a sure sense of the authors humanity. His Shakespeare classes for senior citizens - the special relationships and bonds that he has nutured with lovers of The Bard - those famous and those seemingly forgotten about. Bob Smith's story is inspiring on many levels. However, the greatest gift this book gives us is a beautiful articulation of the awe and wonder that can only be found in the thaetre.

A professor friend of mine recommended this book to me. She had read a review in the Washington Post. Normally, I nod politely at such recommendations and go about reading whatever else it is that was already on my wish list. But, for some reason, I went out and bought this book.
I read it on the plane and, to my great embarrassment, found that I had to put the book down in my lap several times and take deep breaths, lest the other passengers see the tears welling in my eyes.
Bob Smith is a man I didn't know of before picking up the book. I didn't expect to care about his memoir. What I found is that I ended up caring very deeply and simply could not put it down until I'd finished it. To say that it is a moving book is an understatement. Somehow, Mr. Smith touches on all of life and love and loss and hope and well --- humanity. Perhaps it is because he weaves into his tale the timeless wisdom found in Shakespeare. And he does so masterfully.
By reading this memoir, you will learn about life, yourself, Shakespeare, and what it means to be human.

BOB SMITH LOVES Shakespeare, loves words. He observes his mother in the chilly chiaroscuro of the front seat of the family Buick. In snow he stands waiting numb for number 23 cross-town.

Bob traverses New York to deliver his own-styled classes on Shakespeare to groups of seniors, making the bard relevant for them, making his words live and breath as he mines the entire oeuvre with its frequent references to their own life experiences and problems. While seniors nod in recognition, he reads from Henry V, `A good leg will fall, a stringent back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a fair face will wither.`

While Smith tells of how he found his place in the sun, out of the sun, starting humbly as Hamlet`s dresser in Stratford, Connecticut, he uses quotes so proficiently, they never appear pretentious. He introduces us to his severely challenged younger sister, cleverly quoting the Queen`s speech from Hamlet concerning troubled Ophelia.

Remarkable for a young person, Smith devotes endless hours to his sister`s comfort. Coping with her brings powerful emotions to the beginning third of the book. His mother`s mind wanders too, so he dives into Macbeth: Not so sick, my Lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies.

In this memorable mélange, Smith reveals unusual portraits of theatre greats for whom he worked, including Katharine Hepburn, Bert Lahr, John Houseman, Robert Ryan. However, he returns frequently to etch for us another memorable picture of the elderly sinking into the farrago of old age, looking for and finding safety, acceptance and recognition in Smith`s unique propagations.

I would in fact prefer to award this 3.5 stars, but the Amazon system seems to compel one to choose between 3 and 4, and I think 4 is too generous. To begin with the text, there is no doubt that this is not the best Shakespeare to buy. It is to a large extent based on the Oxford Shakespeare, which - quite rightly, in my view - has attracted a lot of criticism for some of its peculiarities. Thus, for example, Oxford prints TWO versions of *King Lear*, the quarto text and that of the folio. Norton rightly takes issue with this, and produces the kind of conflated text that most readers would want, but adds the other two AS WELL (so we are offered THREE versions!). This kind of thing is, in truth, academic self-indulgence - it shows an undue respect for academic concerns which to most readers are not of the slightest interest. There is a similar tendency to pay scant regard to what most readers really want and need in the Introduction: that tells us a good deal about Shakespeare's time, and the material is interesting, but it is not often shown to be relevant, or necessary, to an understanding of what Shakespeare writes. The explanatory annotation accompanying the texts is not bad, but often inferior to that of comparable editions, notably Bevington's. The introductions to individual plays are usually stimulating, but not necessarily convincing. Thus Greenblatt on the one hand says about Macbeth's murder of Duncan, "That he does so without adequate motivation, that he murders a man toward whom he should be grateful and protective, deepens the mystery ..." (p. 2558), yet adds a few lines later: "Macbeth and Lady Macbeth act on ambition ...". Precisely, that IS Macbeth's motivation for the murder, as Macbeth himself points out unequivocally in 1.7.25-7 - there is, therefore, absolutely nothing mysterious about his motivation. The edition does, however, offer a number of good references to other writings about Shakespeare. All in all, I do consider 3.5 stars is a fair "grade", in seeking to assess this for the benefit of the majority of readers looking for a complete Shakespeare to buy; but I consider David Bevington's by far the best edition of the complete works, then the Riverside, and only then this one - though, with its annotations, it is certainly more useful than the Oxford edition on which it is based. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

I confess that after examining 5-6 of the top-selling complete Shakespeares I tried not to like the Norton. There are less expensive editions, there are editions with glossy pages and colored photographs, there are editions that are half the weight and bulk of this leviathan, which is far more Shakespeare than the average reader--perhaps, even scholar, for that matter--would ever require. But despite its bulk and unwieldyness, its 3500 (!) thin, flimsy pages, its sheer excess, I couldn't ignore its advantages. The small print enables the publishers to squeeze in contextual materials--in the introduction and appendixes--that in themselves amount to an encyclopedic companion to Shakespeare's works; the introductions to the plays are written not in "textbook prose" but in an engaging style worthy of their subject; and perhaps, best of all, this is the only edition that places the glosses right alongside the "strange" Elizabethan word instead of in the footnotes. You can read the plays without experiencing vertigo of the eye. So this is the edition, though you may wish to go with the smaller, bound portions that Norton publishes of the same edition--especially if you can't afford the cost of a personal valet to carry this tome from home to office. On the other hand, the complete edition is excellent for doing crunches and other aerobic exercises--activities many of us who read the Bard are abt to ignore.

As a fervent admirer of Shakespeare, this complete collection, comprising excellent introductions to each play and helpful textual notes as well as informative writings on the history of both England and the art of acting that shaped Shakespeare's writing, was like a dream come true. While before I had to walk around trying to find a good edition of the play I wanted to read, now I can open the Norton Shakespeare and read without being afraid of not understanding words or missing the point of the play. This book's obvious drawbacks are its heft and, as mentioned, its delicate pages, but these are easily outweighed by the abovementioned advantages! Buy it and read!

this is shakespeare's most accessible comedy. it's a farce about mistaken identities among identical twins. nothing complicated here. the play has it's funny moments. it's not the bard's best comedy; that's 'much ado about nothing', imho. but this is not a bad place to start.

"Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother."
So says Dromio of Ephesus, one of the members of two sets of estranged twins whose lives become comically intertwined in this delightful, ingenious, & aptly named Comedy of Errors. Being an avid Shakespeare fan and reader, I unequivocally consider The Comdey of Errors to be Shakespeare's finest and funniest comedy. Antipholus of Syracuse and his long lost twin Antipholus of Ephesus along with the two twin servants Dromio of Ephesus and Syracuse become unceasingly mistaken for each other making for a hilarious and entertaining farce of a play.

The Comedy of Errors has been copied many times since in literature, movies, & sitcoms, although it has never been duplicated.

There is no doubt that this comedy of Shakespeare's is delightful, crazy fun. You could call it the father (or mother) of all sit-coms. The play is suitable for middle school production and viewing, with some modifications. For my students and myself I prefer the Folger's edition of Shakespeare's plays for three reasons. First, the footnotes are easy to read and across from the text. 2. The choice of illustrations and 3. The introductory information. When purchasing for my students, though I have tried other publishers, I now always choose Folgers.