Like Shakespeare, this book is as strong on comedy as it is on the serious stuff, and like Shakespeare it's very rarely dull. The American Library Association have awarded it a prize as one of the best reference books of the year, and you can see why -- it's very up to date, very handsome, very easy to use and has lots and lots of really unusual and enlightening pictures. It's particularly good on Shakespeare movies, and is really international -- lively North American scholars cover Shakespeare's presence in Canada and the US beautifully, and it's really bright and surprising about Russia and China and about everywhere else. It's a book that will help explain to high school students why Shakespeare matters and that actually shows how much fun can be had around the plays and poems in so many different ways -- quite apart from telling college students all sorts of things that their professors had better be up on too. I didn't agree with everything it said about the shows at the rebuilt Globe, sure, but then I like seeing guys in tights.

This guide is beautifully illustrated and carefully written by many of the finest Shakespeare scholars alive (there are entries by Helen Vendler, Park Honan, Jonathan Bate, Stephen Orgel, and many others). It is a joy to simply open it to a random page and read. There is an admitted and fairly strong bias toward British Shakespearians and productions, but this helps focus the book and give it a depth many similar guides lack. That doesn't mean it's a provincial book, however, for there are numerous entries surveying Shakespeare across the world and in a variety of contexts. One of the most helpful aspects of the book is an outline of categories and entries at the beginning, a remarkably useful aid when terminology or names slip your mind. It is helpful, but not necessary, to have a copy of the Oxford Shakespeare to refer to, since titles, chronologies, and line references are all keyed to it.

Here's a book about Shakespeare that isn't written as if the only people who had ever cared about him were graduate students -- not that graduate students won't use it all the time, or that it isn't written by the top Shakespeare experts in the world (the contributors include the likes of Stephen Orgel and Helen Vendler), but unforced, unpretentious enthusiasm for Shakespeare and all sorts of things done in his name breathes from every page. It's beautifully illustrated and what's more the research is all fresh -- there's lots of stuff in here that has never been in a Shakespeare reference book before (eg some of the images, lots of stuff about Shakespeare on recent film and TV and radio and in popular culture, newest finds in textual studies and biography). You can read it from A to Z and it's a good read. Fabulous present for anyone studying Shakespeare at any level and especially for anyone who just likes reading the stuff or seeing it acted. It'll help you fall in love with Shakespeare all over again.

Modern well-annotated editions of Shakespeare (like those in the New Cambridge, Oxford, or Arden series) often explain bawdy usages in Shakespeare which today's reader cannot - yet should - understand. Even so, this area is still often comparatively weak in current commentaries, and this classic provides a great deal of help to the reader who wishes to know more. For a reader who does not use annotated editions at all, the glossary is yet more useful, though such a reader will often not even begin to think about instances of bawdy which would have been readily apparent and intelligible to an Elizabethan. Much does not get explained in Partridge: in that case a curious reader will often find the relevant exposition in Gordon Williams's *A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature*. However, as that is an expensive and difficult-to-use book, many readers would still serve themselves well by buying Partridge's guide. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

"Shakespeare's Bawdy" is a classic of its kind. What else would you expect from Partridge? This wee paperback is indispensible, and has yet to be bettered. Think you know all of Shakespeare's puns? Think again!

Sohmer, has written a truely great book here. He goes in deapth, using primary sources to explain the social climate during the opening of the Globe Theatre. Using these items Sohmer illuminates hidden themes in Shakespeare's work. He adds yet another wonderful dimension to the Bard.

Sohmer does an excellent job in this book detailing his idea of which play opened the Globe Theatre. Agree with him or not, this book is a wonderful exploration to the inner workings of Shakespeare's time and his plays. Sohmer goes into detail of the Elizabethian mind and how it relates to Shakespeare's work.

Shakespeare For All Time by Stanley Wells (Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham, and General Editor of the Oxford Shakespeare series) is an inherently fascinating and extensively informative biography and analysis of the life and work William Shakespeare, piecing together all that is known and much that is speculated about one of the greatest playwrights who ever lived. Illustrated with both black-and-white and color plates, and written in down-to-earth terms for all students and enthusiasts of Shakespeare's work (regardless of their level of familiarity with the plays themselves), Shakespeare For All Time is an excellent read and an especially recommended addition for personal, academic, and community library systems for offering informed and invaluable insights into the man and his plays.

Ever wanted to read one book to know about the life of Shakespeare and the life of his plays? This is the only book you need. The world's preeminent Shakespearean scholar at long last presents his knowledgable views on Shakespeare's life and how the different ages, including ours, have appropriated Shakespeare for their own. The first 100 pages are straight-up biography, and a spot-on one at that, providing all of the facts that we know and wise, cautious speculation about what we don't. The following 300 pages illustrate how Shakespeare wrote what he did, and how each age has seen and transformed Shakespeare. Most impressive is that each chapter explores theatrical developments alongside textual and editorial innovations. Not ignored is Shakespeare's representations in visual art, music, and opera. A most impressive volume that is written in an easy to understand style. Any person could pick up this book and understand the history of Shakespeare for all time. Highly recommended as a companion volume is Prof. Wells's earlier exploration -Shakespeare: The Poet and his Plays. That volume discusses each individual play and the poems on an interpretative level, and a highly insightful level at that.

We all know about Shakespeare, so a review of his writing is not required. However, I would like to say that the Everyman's Library series are worth getting. Unlike omnibus editions (such as the Riverside Shakespeare), these are actually portable so you don't need a table to hold them up while you are reading. The Everyman's Library series have good hardbindings, are conveniently sized to carry around, and have illuminating and extensive introductions. The typeface used is old, but the letters are large and easily readable (something that is a concern with some other editions).

Tragedies, Volume 2 contains: Titus Andronicus; Troilus and Cressida; Julius Ceaser; Anthony and Cleopatra; Timon of Athens; Coriolanus

We all know about Shakespeare, so a review of his writing is not required. However, I would like to say that the Everyman's Library series are worth getting. Unlike omnibus editions (such as the Riverside Shakespeare), these are actually portable so you don't need a table to hold them up while you are reading. The Everyman's Library series have good hardbindings, are conveniently sized to carry around, and have illuminating and extensive introductions. The typeface used is old, but the letters are large and easily readable (something that is a concern with some other editions).

Tragedies, Volume 1 contains: Hamlet; Othello; King Lear; Machbeth

William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion

Though billed as a companion to "The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition," "William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion" is a superb reference for any reader of Shakespeare's plays. The book gives the editorial principles and the explanations of editorial decisions made by the editors of the Oxford Shakespeare. The Textual Companion deals with the plays and poems is a systematic basis. This book will deepen anyone's appricaition for the Oxford editors' solutions to textual problems. The real value of this book goes is that it goes beyond just being an explanation of one edition. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the textual problem that any reader of Shakespeare should be aware of.

An example good editing comes from "The Merry Wives of Windsor" 1.4.88-9. The line appears "Ile doe yoe your/ Master what good I can:" in the 1623 folio. John Jowett who edited the play says that the "yoe" is suspicious and goes on the give his reasons. He belives it is a miscorrection. "Yoe" was intended for correction, but instead the compositor inserted "your" and left the "yoe" as is. The line printed in the Oxford edition is "I'll do your master what good/I can". I agree with Jowett's reasons and his correction.

Even though this book goes a long way in presenting textual problems and editorial solutions there are some editorial problems which have not been resolved. For example in "The Tempest" 4.1.123 we read this "So rare a wondered father and a wise". Tthe Oxford edition has "wise" but in the note to this line on page 616 they follow Jeanne Addison Roberts' 1978 article and say the word was "wife" in the first folio. Whether the word was "wife" or "wise" is not yet a settled question. Blayney in his introduction to the Norton Facsimile 2nd Edition (p. xxxi) takes issue with Roberts's conclusions, and for now this does remain an open question.

This book is one of the great books of Shakespearian scholarship. Though I do not agree in every detail, I can say that my appriciation and admiration for the Oxford edition of Shakespeare has increased because of this book. No critical reader of Shakespeare should go without this book.

This book accompanies the ground-breaking Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare (1986) and explains the choices made by the editors in their selection of early printed texts and in their correction of errors in the earliest editions. Additionally, this provides the most recent thorough examination of the problems of editing Shakespeare, of establishing which plays he wrote and the order in which he wrote them, and the relation between the solitary reading experience and the social theatrical experience. If you need answers to questions like "how many quartos of Hamlet were published in Shakespeare's lifetime?" and "which one best represents the play as performed?", this book is the place to look for a thorough scholarly exploration of these topics. If you want criticism about Shakespeare's plays and their meaning, this book is not for you.

Shakespeare is to be taken as seriously as possible and this book does. It can really help those studing Shakespeare at school. An ace way to get a headstart!

Keep this in your library - not only does it look good it feels good. You will always have Shakespeare on hand to get in your literary fix. Shakespeare in a serious readers library is a must!

I'm no Shakespeare scholar, that's for sure, so I admit I was a bit apprehensive when I bought this book, thinking that perhaps it would be an "insider" book with obscure referents and references--you know, the kind that Shakespeare fanatics who write "tho" instead of "though," &tc. This book, though certainly filled with formidable scholarship, is a wonderfully readable book for everyone (or almost everyone!). I loved every page of it (or almost every page).

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.