Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Tom Stoppard was catapulted into the front ranks of modem playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. Its subsequent run in New York brought it the same enthusiastic acclaim, and the play has since been performed numerous times in the major theatrical centers of the world. It has won top honors for play and playwright in a poll of London Theater critics, and in its printed form it was chosen one of the “Notable Books of 1967” by the American Library Association.

Funny and captivating fantasy from rising star Matt Haig! Samuel and Martha's new life with their Aunt Eda in Norway is filled with rules, but most important is rule number nine: NEVER 'UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES' GO INTO THE FOREST. Sure their Uncle Henrik disappeared in the forest ten years ago, but it can't be the forest's fault-can it? Samuel is skeptical until he finds an unusual book, The Creatures of Shadow Forest, which describes the fantastic and sinister creatures supposedly living there. Could Aunt Eda be right? Samuel discovers the truth about the forest's dangerous secrets when Martha becomes lost in the forest, and it's up to him to save her.

Lord Remnant's eccentric parties on his privately owned Caribbean island of Grenadin are the stuff of legend... but then the 12th Earl suddenly dies in the course of an amateur production of The Murder of Gonzago, the play within a play in Hamlet. The Times obituary gives the cause of death as 'heart attack' but an anonymous video tape come to light showing Lord Remnant's final moments, making it very clear his demise was far from natural. As happens so often, Antonia and Hugh Payne get involved in the sinister events surrounding Lord Remnant's death. Was ithis drug-addicted stepson Stephan? Was it Aunt Hortense, whose past contains a dark and shocking secret? Was it Clarissa, his beautiful and very much younger wife? Or was it the elusive Mr Quin, who is left a vast amount of money in Lord Remnant's will for no apparent reason...

(Book). Shakespeare was a man of the theatre to his core, so it is no surprise that he repeatedly contemplated the nuts and bolts of his craft in his plays and poems. Shakespeare scholar Nick de Somogyi here draws together all the cherishable set pieces including "All the world's a stage," Hamlet's encounters with the Players, and Bottom's amateur theatricals along with many other oblique but no less revealing glances, and further insights into theatre practice by Shakespeare's contemporaries and rivals. De Somogyi's commentary takes us through the entire process of Shakespeare's theatrical production, from its casting and auditions, via rehearsals, costumes, and props, to its premiere and audience reception. Shakespeare on Theatre eavesdrops on the urgently whispered noises-off in the "tiring-house" and inhales the heady aroma of the Globe's first audiences.

Reading Shakespeare Historically is a passionate, provocative book by one of the most renowned and popular Renaissance scholars writing today. Charting ten years of critical development, these challenging, witty essays shed new light on Renaissance studies. It also raises intriguing questions about how the culture and history of the past illuminates the key social and political issues of today. Lisa Jardine re-reads Renaissance drama in its historical and cultural context, from laws of defamation in Othello to the competing loyalties of companionate marriage and male friendship in The Changeling. In doing so she reveals a wealth of new insights, sometimes surprising but always original and engrossing. At the same time, these essays also provide a fascinating account of the rise of feminist scholarship since the 1980s and the diversifying of `new historicist' approaches over the same period. Reading Shakespeare Historically will fascinate and provoke students of shakespeare and his historical age, and general readers with an urge to understand how the culture and history of our past illuminates the key scoial and political issues of today.