The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Shakespeare - great

I have the collection in electronic form. It is nice to have as a quick reference. It is cumbersome to use as it is difficult to find particular spots within the plays....for the price, I recommend it as a handy reference.

An extremely useful summary resource for the works of Shakespeare. It is very easy to read and the analysis of each work is well organised and presented and Iuse it regularly to 'refresh' before seeing or reading the plays.

For the love of cheese and rice, can somebody please tell me how in the world I get access to the supposedly free audio portion of this book? I bought it specifically for that purpose and can't find anything that would lead me to believe it exists.

The Modern Library Shakespeare Complete Works is by far the best Kindle edition available.

It has Jonathan Bate's excellent editing of all the plays and poems, with the notes properly hyperlinked, and there are all the notes you need, not to mention excellent introductions to each play.

The Kindle version is the only one I've seen (and I think I've looked at almost all of them) that sets verse as verse, sets prose as prose, and

1) indents continued lines of verse the right way, so that the continuations are
indented,

2) sets prose so that, no matter what size you have the Kindle set at, the prose lines are properly justified, and each of them goes all the way to the right hand margin.

3) has full character names in boldface, and boldface stage directions.

It's a miracle.

As you may know, the store crams all reviews of things like the complete Shakespeare together, so that I had to put this rave for the Modern Library Kindle edition right on top of a less favorable review of the Oxford Kindle edition. That unfavorable review follows.

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At the price of nearly $30, the Kindle Oxford Complete Shakespeare is a bad bargain.

Another reviewer says that many of the lines end with line-numbers, and that these numbers are not in the right hand margin, but right after the last word in the lines, which is confusing and annoying. Then the reviewer takes it back and says he was mistaken. He wasn't. He got it right, except that there are line numbers only now and then, here and there, which means you can't even count on finding the line numbers when you need them, but continue to have all the annoyance of having to disregard them at line ends when they DO show up.

It is true also that there are no reverse accent marks (the sign \ over an "-ed" ending) to indicate when "-ed" endings are pronounced to rhyme with "head." Those marks ARE in the Oxford printed text; in the Kindle version, you can't tell the difference between, say, "inform'd" and "informed," since both are printed the second way and the mark Oxford uses to distinguish them is in the book, but not in the Kindle version.

There are also passages where verse is set as prose.

Overall, this edition is better than the complete editions you can get here for a dollar or so, but paying two thousand eight hundred percent more for a couple fewer errors probably won't appeal to many readers.

Some day the major companies will develop enough respect for the Kindle that they'll do serious proofreading of their Kindle versions. In the meantime, I figure the price alone will result in an effective boycott of this edition from Kindle customers. It certainly should.

P. S. I just downloaded the Tom Corbett Space Cadet series for something like three bucks, and I read the first volume. It was pristine: completely typo free. Somebody worked hard proofreading these boys' stories from the fifties; nobody has done half as much work on the Oxford Shakespeare.

Very good paper quality, it's very thin, but hard to damage : ) The font is pretty small, but good enough for 'healthy eyes'. The only thing, indeed, is the weight... No chance that one could take this to class or something, but it's good to have one at home, instead of 20-30 books. Also, good for students, if there is a need to compare some questionable online versions of the plays to see if there are mistakes - that's what I did in our Shakespeare course...PDF in class, book at home..

I really wish the reviews for all the different copies of this book were not lumped together. I ended up with a copy that is NOT the complete works of William Shakepeare. Mine has a table of contents that lists something, I guess some obscure things Shakepeare wrote, with page numbers. Funny thing did I say page numbers... Well there are none not one single page number, no title heading, no title page, no page break, or any way to navigate in this print book. This looks like a joke slap together photocopy not a legally copy righted booked. the store you should be ashamed. Yes I am keeping it as yet another reminder to be more careful what I buy on the store.

I really wish the reviews for all the different copies of this book were not lumped together. I ended up with a copy that is NOT the complete works of William Shakepeare. Mine has a table of contents that lists something, I guess some obscure things Shakepeare wrote, with page numbers. Funny thing did I say page numbers... Well there are none not one single page number, no title heading, no title page, no page break, or any way to navigate in this print book. This looks like a joke slap together photocopy not a legally copy righted booked. the store you should be ashamed. Yes I am keeping it as yet another reminder to be more careful what I buy on the store.

I love this set, the pages are beautifully arranged. I bought this when I was looking to add to my personal library and wanted to find some of the classics in special edition settings. There's just something about holding a book that has weight to it (and isn't a textbook). If you're looking for something to add to your own collection or to give as a gift then this is definitely an excellent idea.

I returned this book because the print was minuscule. There were no footnotes, and the paper quality was flimsy. Unfortunately, I cannot find a complete works of Shakespeare that is any better. I suppose everyone is buying separate copies of the plays or reading them online (if they are reading them at all). I was disappointed, to say the least. The Bard of Avon deserves better!

The question most people who are considering this book will probably ask is why they should choose it over any other one-volume Shakespeare on the market.

Well, on the plus side there's cost. the store has the hardback edition discounted to almost half price.

On the minus side, there are no explanatory notes in the text, only an alphabetical glossary at the back. You can imagine for yourself the inconvenience of flipping back and forth through a 1300-page volume trying to look up a word. The introductions to each play are only a page long, or less.

And then there's the editing of titles and names, some of which seems pedantic to the point of being downright strange. "The Second Part of Henry VI" has become "The First Part of the Contention of the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster." In "As You Like It" the familiar Forest of Arden is now the forest of Ardenne. Anglicized names such as Stephano and Petruchio have been changed to Stefano and Petruccio. On the other hand, in "Cymbeline" the editors insist on the archaic original form of the name Innogen, which every other editor in the Western world modernizes to Imogen.

Maybe this is the latest state-of-the-art scholarship. Or maybe it's just what happens when you're desperate to find something new to say about a 400-year-old subject.

My feeling is that a general reader will be happier with an edition of Shakespeare that is more thoroughly annotated and less perversely edited. Apparently others feel the same way: after all, the most common reason for cutting the price of a product is that it isn't selling.

Perhaps there was some kind of mistake, but there was NO table of contents (absolutely necessary, needless to say) and NO way of navigating other than go through the entire works of Shakespeare page by page.

This book (ISBN 1458978672) is referred to on this website as the paperback version of the Bevington 6th ed (ISBN 0205606288). The reviews are even shared across the two items. But they are not the same book. This book has just 151 pages, whereas the Bevington book has 2000+ pages.

I think Shakespeare is an inspiration. The fact that after so many hundreds of years, people still relish his work and still find amazing beauty, mystery and wonder in his words shows what a amazing genius he was.

I often wonder about today's literature and if it can possibly stand the test of time the way Shakespeare's has. And I seriously doubt it.

What I think is most amazing is that whenever a new medium tp publish arrives, Shakespeare is still one of the first writers to be showcased. And rightly so!

As for the collection, I can't really fault it. My favorites are there and its really nice that the publisher has collected not only the traditional, but these apocryphal plays. It immediately drew me to it. I have already read one of the new plays and it was fascinating from many different perspectives. I can't wait to read the others, although I am trying to pace myself.

This anthology is a vast collection of Shakespeare's work. It contains everything that one would need to really dive into his pieces. I was satisfied with the quality of the text and happy to find all that I needed so easily.

As I had another version of the complete works of Shakespeare in old-fashioned book format, I hesitated a while before buying the same thing for Kindle. What was the point? I knew most of the plays anyway, being a WS fangirl. I was finally tempted by the apocryphal content. A couple I had heard of, but most of them I didn't know.

One of the advantages of the Kindle (and forgive me for stating the obvious) is that no matter what size the material you are reading is, your book format remains the same. And this is no small consideration when you're dealing with a writer as prolific as Will. My paper and ink version is an absolute doorstep and therefore I'm hardly going to pick it up on a whim to re-read Hamlet, however much I love the play. Now, however, it's as simple as clicking on the list in the table of contents.

The layout is easy to read, the content doesn't need me to review it, and I'm thoroughly enjoying spending time with old friends. Five stars.

I find Shakespeare to be really absorbing, almost like a kind of meditation. Sometimes, I just like to zone out and read his flowing words and let them roll over me. It helps me, especially when I'm having a stressed time. I have so many dog-eared copies of his plays at home. So when my sister recently gave me an birthday/early xmas gift of a Kindle and a gift card, I couldn't wait to find Shakespeare.

I'm very happy with this collection. It has all the usual plays and poems I know and a few I don't. And I love that! But what really is good for me is that I can take the Kindle with me, with Shakespeare and all the other stuff I've put on and want to put on, wherever I go. So if I'm on the subway or waiting in line somewhere, I can whip out my good old classics and read them and zone out a little. Also, I found the Table of Contents nice and simple coz I can go from one play to the other so easily.

Its wonderful!

It has everything you'd ever need for your Shakespeare needs. Organization isn't terrible(no chapter/act selects because of how much stuff is in it). Easy to read from and comes in handy for my class.

I'm not sure what the previous reviewer is talking about. This edition has a complete Table of Contents which not only allows you to navigate to each individual play, but also to each act and then each individual scene.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for in a KINDLE Shakespeare collection. Every other version I've tried has been a terrible waste of money and I wonder how long it's going to be before the store starts acting responsibly and deleting the worthless e-text versions of this and other collections or offering trial samples of every book listed so people will stop being ripped off.

The only improvement I could see is for the table of contents and the individual listings to be justified on the right side of the screen next to the Kindle cursor, but the spacing is wide enough between lines that this is really just quibbling. I would like to see every Kindle book with this simple modification.

It has everything you'd ever need for your Shakespeare needs. Organization isn't terrible(no chapter/act selects because of how much stuff is in it). Easy to read from and comes in handy for my class.

I'm not sure what the previous reviewer is talking about. This edition has a complete Table of Contents which not only allows you to navigate to each individual play, but also to each act and then each individual scene.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for in a KINDLE Shakespeare collection. Every other version I've tried has been a terrible waste of money and I wonder how long it's going to be before the store starts acting responsibly and deleting the worthless e-text versions of this and other collections or offering trial samples of every book listed so people will stop being ripped off.

The only improvement I could see is for the table of contents and the individual listings to be justified on the right side of the screen next to the Kindle cursor, but the spacing is wide enough between lines that this is really just quibbling. I would like to see every Kindle book with this simple modification.

Disappointed and returning it. If you like your page bottom notes, forget it. THERE ARE NONE... zip, zero. There is a glossary in the back with simple definitions. Play introductions are very basic, 3/4 of a page? I got a Richard II from the library, an Oxford single play, and it has a full and interesting introduction, page bottom notes, etc, etc. Ardenish. u get what u pay 4. I have several other less expensive "budget collections" which provide the same as this. My close reader group ranges from ancient collegiate legacy tomes (huge and heavy) to most basic paperbacks. I'm sampling various editions and dodging established opinions, but its looking like Arden wins all round for the serious reader. I do like the Oxford single of R2, but don't see it available here. NOTE: after return within two days, in original shipping materials, unused, ext. I received only a $7 refund from the store. First negative experience, but then first return. Now using the Oxford single play and it is working very well.

Well edited and well brought out on high quality paper.
However, when you consider buying a complete Shakespeare, think whether you want one with explanatory footnotes or not. If you do, buy the Norton or Pelican edition. If you want the bare text, buy the Oxford or Arden, which have a brief lexicon in back.

The book arrived timely and was properly and securely packed. In appearance the book was in pristine condition and it is beautiful to look at. It will make a perfect gift and I am 100% satisfied with the purchase. Thank you.

This product is not the complete works, or at least not what you would assume to be the complete works. It is a printing of various William Shakespeare content form Project Gutenberg. It contains sonnets 1 - 154, and "Alls Well That Ends Well". There's no title page, no publisher information, etc.

My favorite excerpt, which can be found in multiple places:
"
<<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
"

At least it was cheap. I'll regift it to my friends with non-uniform table legs.

What could be wrong with the complete works of Shakespeare for two bucks? The only think I can find is that the lines are not numbered. If you need this for a class, that could be a problem. Otherwise, even if you are a Shakespeare denier, this is great.