Brings together in one volume editions of all the plays, poems, and sonnets originally published as individual paperbacks in the New American Library's Signet Classic Shakespeare series. With a General Introduction by Professor Barnet, introductions to the individual plays by the contributing editors.

The Taming of the Shrew Robust and bawdy, The Taming of the Shrew captivates audiences with outrageous humor as Katharina, the shrew, engages in a contest of wills–and love–with her bridegroom, Petruchio, in a comedy of unmatched theatrical brilliance, filled with visual gags and witty repartee. A Midsummer Night's Dream Fairy magic, love spells, and an enchanted wood turn the mismatched rivalries of four young lovers into a marvelous mix-up of desire and enchantment, all touched by Shakespeare’s inimitable vision of the intriguing relationship between dreams and the waking world. The Merchant of Venice This dark comedy of love and money contains one of the truly mythic figures in literature–Shylock, the Jewish moneylender. The “pound of flesh” he demands as payment of Antonio’s debt has become a universal metaphor for vengeance. Here, pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglements, to display the extraordinary power and range of Shakespeare at his best. Twelfth Night Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy juxtaposes a romantic plot involving separated twins and mistaken identity with a more satiric one about the humiliation of a pompous killjoy. The hilarity is touched with melancholy, and the play ends, not with laughter, but with a clown’s plaintive song. Each Edition Includes: • Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English • Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

By this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to understand the play-and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual and moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every other interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting, from the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the man, I have cast what light I could upon everything in the play, including the perplexities arising from extreme condensation of meaning, figure, and expression. As it is more than desirable that the student should know when he is reading the most approximate presentation accessible of what Shakspere uttered, and when that which modern editors have, with reason good or bad, often not without presumption, substituted for that which they received, I have given the text, letter for letter, point for point, of the First Folio, with the variations of the Second Quarto in the margin and at the foot of the page.

The Signet Classics edition of William Shakespeare's timeless story of star-crossed lovers. One of the Bard's most popular plays, this is both the quintessential story of young love and a cautionary tale of the tragedy that can occur when the forces of passion and familial pride are at odds. This title in the Signet Classics Shakespeare series includes: • An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater • A special introduction to the play by the editor, J.A. Bryant, Jr. • The source from which Shakespeare derived Romeo and Juliet, Arthur Brooke's The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet • Dramatic criticism from Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Michael Goldman, and others • A comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions of Romeo and Juliet • Text, notes, and commentaries printed in the clearest, most readable format • Recommended readings

One of Shakespeare's most thought-provoking comedies in which high-born Lord Bertram learns humility and the true worth of his wife.