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.

This schools' edition of Mark Haddon's multi-award-winning novel adapted for the stage of the National Theatre by Simon Stephens is perfect for Key Stages 3 and 4. Featuring the play script from the Modern Plays edition but with the language adjusted for school use*, this edition includes a wealth of classroom activities for the English and drama classrooms. Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down. This educational edition in Methuen Drama's Critical Scripts series has been prepared by national Drama in Secondary English experts Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan. Building on a decade of highly effective work and publications endorsed by national organisations and supported by teachers and consultants across Britain, each book in the series: Simon Stephens's adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling, award-winning novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time offers a richly theatrical exploration of this touching and bleakly humorous tale. * The instances of stronger language have been tempered in this edition specifically for school use. Teachers may still wish to satisfy themselves that it is suited to the age of their pupils.

Read & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's comedy, "Twelfth Night”. Featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare, it is a must for Shakespeare enthusiasts and newcomers alike. The tale begins when the twins, Viola and Sebastian, are separated in a shipwreck. Viola is rescued and helped by a sea captain. When she takes up service with Count Orsino of Illyria disguised as a young man, the confusion begins. Mistaken identities, duels and a comic subplot make for hilarious results. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world's most famous dramatist.

The Winter's Tale is Shakespeare's most perfectly realized tragicomedy, as notable for its tragic intensity as for its comic grace and, throughout, for the richness and complexity of its poetry. It concludes, moreover, with the most daring and moving reconciliation scene in all Shakespeare's plays. Though the title may suggest an escapist fantasy, recent criticism has seen in the play a profoundly realistic psychology and a powerful commentary on the violence implicit in family relationships and deep, longlasting friendships. Stephen Orgel's edition considers the play in relation to Renaissance conceptions of both dramatic genre and the family, traced the changing critical and theatrical attitudes towards it, and places its psychological and dramatic conflicts within the Jacobean cultural and political context. The commentary pays special attention to the play's linguistic complexity, and the edition also includes a complete reprint of Shakespeare's source, Pandosto, by Robert Greene.

Arcadia takes us back and forth between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ranging over the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life. Focusing on the mysteries—romantic, scientific, literary—that engage the minds and hearts of characters whose passions and lives intersect across scientific planes and centuries, it is "Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and . . . emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow . . . Exhilarating" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times).

This is the first scholarly edition of Othello to give full attention to the play's bold treatment of racial themes. Designed to meet the needs of theatre professionals, the edition includes an extensive performance history, a commentary illuminating the complexities of Shakespeare's language, and appendices on music in the play and a full translation of the Italian novella from which the story derives.

Two sets of identical twins provide the basis for ongoing incidents of mistaken identity, within a lively plot of quarrels, arrests, and a grand courtroom denouement. One of Shakespeare's earliest comedic efforts.

Companion to the work of playwright Tom Stoppard who also co-authored screenplay of Shakespeare in Love.