Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children

I ordered a specific version of All’s Well That Ends Well - New Folger and received the wrong one. Second time this has happened. Trying again.

I bought the book to use as I read the characher La Few in the recent Sacramento Shakespeare 30-hour Marathon where we read and webcast 12 comedies. I found the format with notes on one side and text on the other very easy to use. When next year's marathon rolls around, I'll be back!

I loved it. "All's Well That End's Well" is a convoluted story of guys who want to marry the girl who doesn't want to marry them, but wants the guy that doesn't really want her but, wants to go off with another guy. There's a coward, homoerotic undertones, slapstick, deceit, and a king who is in charge and apparently clueless. The significance of a devious, influential, and brilliant young woman as a heroine is easy to understand when Queen Elizabeth was in the audience. In a period of sophisticated intrigues and war, this was a relevant bit of entertainment. Knowing the original context, much of this play's relevance is retained after almost 400 years. The subtle insinuation that Bertram would rather hang with his buddy that his lady is easily lost if you don't pay attention, and would be easy to play down on stage. It shouldn't be, it was part of the play, and adds a subtle and arch touch to the script. I really enjoyed this one, especially when the coward Parolles gets burned. E. M. Van Court

All's Well has been unfairly treated. It's supposed to be one of Shakespeare's worst plays, but it is truly fascinating. It is subtle, and the conflicts are rich. Here, no one is purely good or bad, and perhaps it's the difficulty of feeling drawn to a variety of characters who are in conflict that makes people dislike this play. The female lead is bravely determined. The male lead is completely controlled by the political situation. Of course he wants his freedom! The adoration that the female lead feels for him must seem like a trap. . . And yet she does feel it, and she's willing to do everything to realize her dream. I love the reality of this play. It isn't glorious like Hamlet, it isn't abject like Lear. Instead, it's a picture of a middle class reality that gives us insight into sex, liberty, love, and authority.

As you would expect from Oxford, this is a very well done edition of the play, with a comprehensive introduction (though I wished for a little more theatre history myself) that covers the major issues in this "problem" comedy (though it is not nearly so much a problem play as, say, Troilus and Cressida, in fact being much closer in many ways to Measure for Measure), several textual appendices, an index, useful textual- and foot-notes (there seem to be a great many phrasings in this play that need explanation--a result of revision?), and two of Shakespeare's direct sources in Erasmus and Painter. There were a few points when I disagreed with the interpreations offered in the footnotes, but overall, the apparatus is excellent. As for the play itself, the main action concerns the efforts of Helen to recapture her husband Bertram, who is given to her by the King as a reward for curing his fistula. He does not think she, as a physician's daughter, is worthy of his station and flees to the wars in Italy without consumating the marriage. The comic subplot involves the exposure of the cowardice of his companion, Paroles. Helen evnetually fulfills the requirements Bertram sets out in a letter--to obtain his ring and bear a child by him--through a bed trick, and the play ends where it began, with the King (echoes of Lear?) offering Diana, who helped in the trick, her choice of husband. Overall, a very good edition of a less popular play.

There are artists whose work is so fundamental that they are beyond questioning. It is not that all their work is supreme, but rather that the body of their work is so transcendent and so core to our culture that one must come to grips with it if one wishes to understand what makes us who we are. There is no writer more central to the English language than Shakespeare. So, by definition everything he wrote is worth reading and deserves five stars by my ranking system. That is not to say that every play has in it what we value most in his greatest works. Certainly, "All's Well That Ends Well" is not one of his greatest works. However, that is like noting that 2004 was not a good year for Tiger Woods and he still placed fourth on the money list and is still ranked number two in the world. Even lesser Shakespeare is ahead of nearly everyone else, especially when one factors in the insight gained by experiencing his entire body of work. What we are after in reviews like this is less about the play than the edition itself. I am a huge fan of the Arden editions because of the helpful insights their scholarship provides into the plays. We do not have to wade through unnecessary essays on politically correct interpretations of the plays. In this edition, we get an introductory essay that deals with issues of text, date, interpretation, and performance. Since this is one of the least performed of Shakespeare's plays, this is necessarily brief. What is this play about? The title is a motto of young commoner named Helena. She is the orphan of a doctor and taken in by the Countess of Rossillion. Helena is captivated by the Countess's son, Bertram who has no interest in her. The play is about her unrelenting path to have him as her husband. It is an interesting play with some glorious lines. But if you are only going to read a half dozen of Shakespeare's plays, you need not bother with this one. However, I think you should take time to read all of them. So, this is a fine and recommended edition of one of Shakespeare's lesser plays, but that is still greater than nearly everything else and so should be read by all.