Author:William Shakespeare

Volume 1 of the Everyman Shakespeare, published in 1992, includes the four major tragedies: HAMLET, KING LEAR, OTHELLO and MACBETH. The authoritatively edited texts of the plays are supplemented with extensive bibliographies, a chronology of Shakespear's life and times and a substantial introduction in which Prosessor Tony Tanner examines Shakespeare's evolution as a tragedian while also providing detailed discussions of the individual plays. This is the only two-volume edition of the tragedies with such comprehensive apparatus and it will eventually form part of a complete Shakespeare (plays and poems) in eight volumes.
They don't write them like this any more. A magnificent brooding evocation of London in the middle of the 19th century, disfigured by a pitiless class system, murderous capitalism and a religion that sinks the heart. No-one, not even the most humane and idealistic, is able to escape the clutches of one or other of these evils. All are tainted. That such a sombre novel is also able to be supremely comic might seem a mystery, but isn't: it is laughter that gives us the courage to look into the abyss.
—— Howard Jacobson , Kirkus UKThough Little Dorrit is one of Dickens's less well-known works, it has all his hallmarks
—— Sunday Telegraph






