WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Macbeth as well as the moving history plays and the comedies such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It with their magical combination of humor, ribaldry and tenderness.

This volume is a reprint of the highly regarded Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in the chronological order - as far as may be ascertained in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets, as well as his longer poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

Cover illustration:

A View of London, Dutch School c.1650, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of the Duke of Devonshire and the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement. Portrait Shakespeare unnamed artist, derived from the Droeshout portrait courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library