Hogarth Shakespeare

This volume features the full text of the play, a complete glossary, production notes, excerpts of important scenes and passages from multiple productions, and interviews and essays from notable Shakespeare scholars and performers. The audio CD with this edition of Macbeth contains a series of unique recordings to illustrate how different actors place their own interpretation on the play. Hear Orson Welles in a 1940s recording reciting Macbeth's famous soliloquy 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow'. Compare that to a contemporary version by Stephen Dillane from 1998. There are also superb performances from Sir Alec Guinness, Simon Russell Beale, Harriet Walter, Fiona Shaw and David Tennant. The text is illustrated throughout with photographs from notable productions including Trevor Nunn's 1976 RSC production with Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench, Roman Polanski's 1971 film, and Michael Kahn's 2004-5 production at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. The book also takes you behind the scenes with reproductions of set drawings, costume designs and scene edits, including images from the 1937-38 production at the Old Vic starring Laurence Olivier and Judith Anderson. As well as the playtext, there are articles covering a range of topics including 'In Production: Macbeth through the Years' by William Proctor Williams, 'Macbeth in Popular Culture' by Douglas Lanier, 'A Voice Coach's Perspective on Speaking Shakespeare' by Andrew Wade and 'In the Age of Shakespeare' by Thomas Garvey. The Sourcebooks Shakespeare Macbeth is an invaluable tool for students of all ages from GCSE to A Level and beyond.

In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, merchant Antonio borrows from the Jewish moneylender Shylock, to help fund his friend Bassanio's wooing of the beautiful, prized Portia. Antonio, who makes no attempt to hide his loathing of Shylock, usury and everything Jewish, must promise in return a bond of a pound of his own flesh should he not be able to repay the debt. When Antonio's ships are lost at sea, it becomes clear he won't be able to service his debt. The case is heard at court; Antonio must honour his promise. Until an unknown lawyer arrives, talking of mercy, and picks the case apart. Howard Jacobson takes Shakespeare's great tale of vengeance and cruelty and propels it through space and time to the shiny modern world.

Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he hands over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan, but as relations sour he starts to doubt the wisdom of past decisions. Now imprisoned in Meadowmeade, an upscale sanatorium in rural England, with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. But who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate? Edward St Aubyn is renowned for his masterwork, the five Melrose novels, which dissect with savage and beautiful precision the agonies of family life. His take on King Lear, Shakespeares most devastating family story, is an excoriating novel for and of our times an examination of power, money and the value of forgiveness.

Anne Tyler's retelling of the Shakespeare play "The taming of the shrew."