Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Know-It-All Version uses playful commentary interlaced with the lines of Shakespeare’s original text to actively guide and support you as you read this play. It’s a lively, engaging, often funny, and thoroughly enlightening way to read Shakespeare. Finally—you don’t have to be an expert to know it all.

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This version of Hamlet breaks the mold of what annotated Shakespeare texts have looked like up to now. Rather than putting the historical background and literary insights in an introduction, where they are nearly never read, Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Know-It-All Version presents that information as a running commentary interlaced with the lines of Shakespeare. This commentary provides supportive elements in engagingly digestible bites, including the occasional “Pro-Tip,” in which the reader gets wry life advice inspired by the events or tensions of the play. The most important aspect of this format is that it empowers readers in real time as they read, while encouraging them to laugh and connect personally to the text in purposeful ways. As readers interact with this play, they pause to consider what’s happening, to make supported guesses about what’s just been said, to find the double-entendre in the previous line, or to have their comprehension verified or expanded through historical context. There is space in this commentary for readers to consider the text on their own terms rather than being told a single set of interpretations through a performance or a “translation.” It’s an elegant, supported, and sumptuously interactive reading experience.