To the Reader
To read or not to read this book?
It’s in your hands, so take a look.
The plays by gentle Shakespeare here
With pictures through each play appear
For you and friends to laugh, to cry,
To sink in thought, to wonder why.
For you will find on every page
The lives of us in every age;
And though the
Folio’s a fact,
Our aim’s to give you plays to act.
Michael Rosen
IntroductionMr. William Shakespeares comedies, histories, & tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies arrived in London bookstalls in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. Compiled by his friends and fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell, it collected together, for the first time, thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays, which subsequently became known as the
First Folio to distinguish it from later editions.
Heminges and Condell wanted to send Shakespeare’s plays out into the world in the most magnificent way they could: “folio” refers to its size, and this was a large book, carefully set, intricately printed, with dedicatory poems and a large picture of Shakespeare at the front. This was the first time such a book of plays had entered the market and it was an ambitious project. Only half of the plays had been previously printed, in smaller, individual editions called “quartos”, which again refers to their size. None of the original scripts survive today, and it is amazing to think that without the
First Folio, at least eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays, including
The Tempest, Twelfth Night and
Macbeth, would have been lost for ever.
The book that you hold in your hand is a tribute to the enterprise of John Heminges and Henry Condell and follows the order in which they set out Shakespeare’s plays. Like the original
First Folio, it also includes a dedicatory verse by the poet and children’s author Michael Rosen, and a wonderful new portrait of William Shakespeare by Emily Sutton. Making a book has never been a simple task, and this edition, with over four hundred pages, thirty-six plays and more than three hundred illustrated characters, is testament to weeks and months of collaboration between so many talented, dedicated individuals. More than that, it helps to demonstrate the sheer scale and ambition of the publication of Shakespeare’s plays four hundred years ago.
There are very few adaptations of Shakespeare’s works for young readers that use his language, and that can be performed and explored just like the plays on which they’re based. We have adapted all thirty-six of the plays in the
First Folio to be performed by small groups in a short amount of time, using almost entirely Shakespeare’s original language. From the popular
Macbeth and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the famously overlooked
King John and
Coriolanus, this book brings each play into your world, and invites you to scream out phrases such as “Friends, Romans, countrymen”; to play the likes of Mark Antony and Rosalind; and to explore wonderful words, including “sluggardized”, “froward” and “noddle”!
All of the plays are beautifully illustrated by Emily Sutton, with many of the illustrations inspired by rare books and beautiful historic objects in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s collection.
We have created these adaptations in the belief that Shakespeare is for everyone. We hope that you will enjoy sharing Shakespeare’s works with your friends and families, and treasure this beautiful book made in the image of one born from a mixture of enterprise and ambition four hundred years ago. In celebrating Shakespeare’s legacy, we also invite you to be part of his future. Perhaps you will be inspired to see a performance of a Shakespeare play, to read his plays in full, or even to stand onstage and speak his lines. The words in this book are Shakespeare’s but they belong to you too.
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Note on the TextThis book echoes the categorization of Shakespeare’s plays into comedies, histories and tragedies, faithfully following the order in which each one was set forth in the 1623 printing – with the addition of Troilus and Cressida, which due to its late addition in the
First Folio has no corresponding title on the contents page. We have chosen to include it in our version for ease of reference.
While including as much Shakespeare as possible, some changes to vocabulary have been made to reflect different language uses over time. For example, “thy mistress” is once changed to “my mistress”. The word “love” in
Titus Andronicus has been altered to “desire” to better reflect the characters’ intentions. More intervention has taken place in very long passages, which are not immediately relevant to the narrative. For example, in
The Third Part of King Henry VI, the lines “And Warwick rages like a chafed bull: / Away, for death doth hold us in pursuit” have been edited to “Warwick rages, and Clifford is slain. / Away!” Every line has been carefully considered and scrutinized, set forth and reconstructed to read, sound and feel right for the audience. Where relevant, names have been written to support pronunciation rather than as they are reflected in the original text, for example Alonzo rather than Alonso; and Aegeon instead of Egeon.
Eagle-eyed
First Folio experts will note that the opening Chorus in Romeo and Juliet, though not in the 1623 edition, has been included here, because it is so familiar to readers and audiences of the play. Other interventions are noticeable in the metre of some verse, and especially in the stage directions, which are created and amplified to support narrative cohesion.
Naturally, with tone and propriety in mind, certain topics and references have been altered or removed entirely. Bed tricks, non-consensual adult activity and any outdated racial references have not been deemed appropriate without room for contextualization and have, as a consequence, been omitted or adapted.
Abridging is a bit of a personal activity, so it is with a great sense of humility that I have made my judgements. I offer my edits to each play in the hope that they tell a compelling story, while introducing Shakespeare’s language to young readers in as unfiltered a way as reasonably possible, within the limits of a work only ten per cent of the length of its original.
Dr Anjna Chouhan
Copyright © 2024 by William Shakespeare and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust; illustrated by Emily Sutton. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
