Love's Labours Lost - William Shakespeare - Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to forswear the company of women for three years of study and fasting, and their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies. In...

"This Arden edition of Hamlet, arguably Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, presents an authoritative, modernized text based on the Second Quarto text with a new introductory essay covering key productions and criticism in the decade since its first publication. A timely up-date in the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's death which will ensure the Arden edition continues to offer students a comprehensive and current critical account of the play,...

The embattled Wingfield family: Amanda, a faded southern belle, abandoned wife, dominating mother, who hopes to match her daughter with an eligible "gentleman caller;" Laura, a lame and painfully shy, she evades her mother's schemes and reality by retreating to a world of make-believe; Tom's sole support of the family, he eventually leaves home to become a writer but is forever haunted by the memory of Laura. The only single edition now available...

All's Well That Ends Well (1607) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well was likely inspired by the tale of Giletta di Narbona from Boccaccio's Decameron. Unpopular during Shakespeare's lifetime, the play remains one of his least staged works to this day. Despite this, scholars praise All's Well That Ends Well for its moral ambiguity. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, our virtues would be proud...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father's inheritance amid a whirlwind of sexuality, untethered in the person of Maggie the Cat. The play also daringly showcased the burden of sexuality repressed in the agony of her husband, Brick Pollitt. In spite of the public controversy Cat stirred up, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award for...

"Measure for Measure," while listed among William Shakespeare's comedies, is doubtless among the darkest of his lighter works and remains one of the Bard's most popular plays. When the Duke of Vienna decides to go undercover in his own city, he leaves Angelo, his deputy, in charge and disguises himself as a monk to see how things progress in his absence. Angelo, who purports to be a man of honor and a stickler for the rules, arrests young Claudio...

Themes: Adapted Classics, Low Level Classics, William Shakespeare, Fiction, Tween, Teen, Young Adult, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books. Timeless Shakespeare-designed for the struggling reader and adapted to retain the integrity of the original play. These classic plays...

Brutus, best friend of the Roman ruler Caesar, reluctantly joins a successful plot to murder Caesar and subsequently destroys himself. Includes notes and an introduction.

Abby Mann's classic story about the Nuremberg trials, under which German leaders were found guilty of crimes against humanity in 1945 and 1946. Even today, the play remains a shattering indictment of the consequences of unchecked authority and the seductive power of group thought. Includes an audience talkback with Judge Bruce Einhorn, who served at the Justice Department supervising litigation against Nazi war criminals and is currently a professor...

Henry VI, Part 2 presents a kind of story that was popular before Shakespeare began writing, tracing the fall of powerful individuals to their untimely deaths. The first to go is the Duke of Gloucester, Lord Protector of England and the most powerful man in the kingdom, who is murdered after his wife goes into exile. Next to meet a bad end is the Duke of Suffolk, the queen's lover, who rules England through her. After Suffolk conspires with the cardinal...