SHAKESPEARE: Plays & Sonnets

83 plays have been selected for this collection, which should provide the average person interested in Shakespeare with material for reading and study and a resultant comfortable and intelligent familiarity with the best of Shakespeare. There is an excellent general introduction, with sound background information on Shakespeare, his times, the historical and linguistic data necessary to intelligent reading, something of the drama of the period, the playhouses, the method of studying the text, and reading lists for further study. For the plays themselves, the Globe text has been used, and footnotes, not too elaborate, tie the reference material into the actual reading of the text. Judicious modernization of spelling, punctuation, capitalization seems thoroughly justified. The book is surprisingly easy to handle despite its large size and 1090 pages.