Shakespeare: A Playgoer's & Reader's Guide

Shakespeare: A Playgoer's & Reader's Guide is your essential companion to all Shakespeare's extant works (as well as those known to be lost). Two of our most eminent Shakespeare scholars guide us through his sonnets, his poems, and his plays, providing the reader with detailed scene-by-scene plot synopses, cast lists, notes on the texts and sources, discussions of artistic features, and accounts of significant productions on stage and screen.

Derived from the acclaimed Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, and fully updated to reflect the latest scholarship and most recent notable productions, it is the ideal compact guide for students and theatre-goers needing a helpful plot summary, or readers wishing to browse on fascinating background information.

Michael Dobson, Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham,Stanley Wells, Honorary President, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon

Michael Dobson is Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, a member of the Council of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and an honorary governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company: his previous appointments include posts at Oxford, Harvard, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of London, and he has held fellowships and visiting appointments in California, Sweden and China. His publications include The Making of the National Poet (1992), England's Elizabeth (with Nicola Watson, 2002), Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today (2006), and Shakespeare and Amateur Performance (2011).

Sir Stanley Wells, CBE, FRSL, is Honorary President, Life Trustee, and former Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He was Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, from 1988-1997, and is now Emeritus Professor. He is an Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has been General Editor of the Oxford Shakespeare since 1978 and is General Editor of the Penguin Shakespeare. One of the most distinguished Shakespearian scholars currently working, his publications include The Oxford Dictionary of Shakespeare (1998), Shakespeare: The Poet and his Plays (2001), The Oxford Shakespeare: King Lear (2001), Shakespeare For All Time (2002), Shakespeare & Co (2006), Shakespeare, Sex, and Love (2010), Great Shakespeare Actors (2015), William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction (2015), and Shakespeare's Tragedies: A Very Short Introduction (2017).

Preface
All Is True
All's Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
Cardenio
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Edward III
First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI)
Hamlet
Henry IV Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
Henry V
Henry VI Part 1
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
A Lover's Complaint
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Won
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer's Night Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
The Phoenix and the Turtle
The Rape of Lucrece
Richard Duke of York (3 Henry VI)
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
Sir Thomas More
Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Venus and Adonis
The Winter's Tale
A Short Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Life, Works, and Reception: A Partial Chronology, 1564-2020
Family Tree of Characters in the English Histories
Some Suggested Further Reading