The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: From the Text of the Selected Copies of Steevens and Malone, With a Life of the Poet, by Charles Symmons, ... and a Glossary; Complete in One Volume

by William Shakespeare

Excerpt from The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare

Whichdntbroo tthe two tad cl the our Shakqtearo and onaon, Into that etnhraee o friendship which continued in di-olnhlo. Ae then ia reason to believe. During the permit-ion of mortality. Ia re torted to have been the hind antatnnee given y the former to the latter, when he wot o?'eri one of hi playa (every Man in his Humour) or the benefit of mutation. The manuscript. Ll It in and was on the point of being rejected and reto with a rude answer, when Shah-pure. Tortu natel glancing his eye over in pager, imme diately dieeoverad ita merit; and. With hie in ?uence, obtained ita Introduction on the atone To thie story um eltccmtte ob)ec.tiona have haen hind and there cannot be any tteceutty for contending for it, an no lucky accident can he required to account for the ttttlttcetnettt of arch between two men of hieh genius, each dog the arm broad truth to fame and for tune, yet each with a character on peculiarly hie own that he might attain hie able-cl without wounding the e or invadiu the inter-em ot'

956 pages, Paperback

Published August 24, 2018

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".