RSC Shakespeare Complete Works Collector's Edition

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.

Preface; J.Bate
General Introduction; J.Bate
A User's Guide
Preliminary pages of the First Folio
Foreword; M.Boyd, Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: COMPLETE WORKS
For each play:
Individual introduction by Jonathan Bate
On-page footnote gloss which explains unfamiliar or obsolete words and classical, biblical or contemporary references where WS assumes audience knowledge
Appendices of any significant passages that are not in First Folio
'Key Facts' box with: plot summary, major roles, date, linguistic medium, sources, textual notes

COMEDIES
The Tempest
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado about Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
All's Well that Ends Well
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
The Winter's Tale

HISTORIES
The Life and Death of King John
The Life and Death of King Richard the Second
The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry surnamed Hotspur
The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, containing his Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth
The Life of Henry the Fifth
The First Part of Henry the Sixth
The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey
The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Duke of York
The Tragedy of Richard the Third, with the Landing of Earl Richmond and the Battle at Bosworth Field
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth

TRAGEDIES
The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
The Tragedy of Coriolanus
The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
The Life of Timon of Athens
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
The Tragedy of King Lear
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
The Tragedy of Cymbeline

PLAYS NOT IN THE FIRST FOLIO
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, by William Shakespeare and George Wilkins
The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

POEMS AND SONNETS
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece
'Let the bird of loudest lay' (also known as 'The Phoenix and Turtle')
'To the Queen'
Shakespeare's Sonnets

A Scene from Sir Thomas More
(Introduction, transcription and modernized text by Eric Rasmussen)

CHARTS
Shakespeare's Works: A Conjectural Chronology
Kings and Queens of England: from the History Plays to Shakespeare's Lifetime
The Houses of Lancaster and York: A Genealogy
The history behind the histories: a chronology
The history behind the tragedies: a chronology

Alphabetical Index of Plays and Poems