Fiction Genres

Shakespeare's powerful exploration of betrayal and revenge is one of his most performed plays – and his longest. Here, the text is supported with an extended introduction, glossary and a timeline of the playwright's life.

'Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.' Often referred to superstitiously as 'the Scottish play', Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's best-loved works. As a general in the army of the Scottish king, Macbeth meets three witches who prophesy that he will one day take his master's place. A tumultuous tale of how ambition, guilt and paranoia lead to deceit and murder, it is one of the greatest studies of…

First performed in 1597, Romeo and Juliet tells the tragic story of two young star-crossed lovers and their feuding families – the Montagues and the Capulets. With a foreword analysing the play's history, structure and characters, glossary and timeline.

With its themes of passion, dishonesty and race, this tragic tale of a Moorish war hero deceived by a subordinate into murdering his beautiful young wife in a jealous rage remains disturbingly relevant.

In this lively comedy of love and money in sixteenth-century Venice, Bassanio wants to impress the wealthy heiress Portia but lacks the necessary funds. He turns to his merchant friend, Antonio, who is forced to borrow from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. When Antonio's business falters, repayment becomes impossible--and by the terms of the loan agreement, Shylock is able to demand a pound of Antonio's flesh. Portia cleverly intervenes, and all ends well (except of course for Shylock).

Henry V is Shakespeare’s most famous “war play”; it includes the storied English victory over the French at Agincourt. Some of it glorifies war, especially the choruses and Henry’s speeches urging his troops into battle. But we also hear bishops conniving for war to postpone a bill that would tax the church, and soldiers expecting to reap profits from the conflict. Even in the speeches of Henry and his nobles, there are many chilling references to the human cost of war.

Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman Caesar’s death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians. Renaissance writers disagreed over the assassination, seeing Brutus, a leading conspirator, as either hero or villain. Shakespeare’s play keeps this debate alive.

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. First published in 1600, it is likely to have been first performed in the autumn or winter of 1598-1599, and it remains one of Shakespeare's most enduring and exhilarating plays on stage. Stylistically, it shares numerous characteristics with modern romantic comedies including the two pairs of lovers, in this case the romantic leads, Claudio and Hero, and their comic counterparts, Benedick and Beatrice.

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Written in the early 1590s, Shakespeare's version of the story of Richard III, more properly known as The Tragedy of Richard the Third, depicts events that happened more than a century before. The story is based on the unfinished History of Richard III by Sir Thomas More, writing as the Tudor dynasty was seeking to consolidate its position. Shakespeare portrays his usurping, hunchbacked Richard as truly villainous, with few redeeming features. Yet as he strives to consolidate power, he is a…