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The authoritative edition of The Winter's Tale from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

Read Shakespeare's plays in all their brilliance--and understand what every word means

One of the last plays Shakespeare penned on his own, The Winter's Tale is a transcendent work of death and rebirth, exploring irrational sexual jealousy, the redemptive world of nature, and the magical power of art. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen,... Read Full Overview

The Winter's Tale , one of Shakespeare's very late plays, is filled with improbabilities. Before the conclusion, one character comments that what we are about to see, "Were it but told you, should be hooted at / Like an old tale." It includes murderous passions, man-eating bears,... Read Full Overview

The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical... Read Full Overview

One of Shakespeare's later plays, best described as a tragi-comedy, the play falls into two distinct parts. In the first Leontes is thrown into a jealous rage by his suspicions of his wife Hermione and his best-friend, and imprisons her and orders that her new born daughter... Read Full Overview

This edition of The Winter's Tale is especially designed for students, with accessible on-page notes and explanatory illustrations, clear background information, and rigorous but accessible scholarly credentials. This edition includes illustrations, preliminary notes, reading... Read Full Overview

Shakespeare's tale of two kings who are friends and rivals.

"A merry winter's tale would drive away the time trimly," suggests a character from The Old Wives' Tale, a play by one of Shakespeare's lesser-known contemporaries. And indeed, Elizabethan audiences recognized a "winter's tale" as a fanciful story, rendered all the... Read Full Overview

The Winter's Tale is Shakespeare's most fully realized tragicomedy, noted for the richness and complexity of its poetry. Though the title may suggest an escapist fantasy, recent criticism has seen in the play a profoundly realistic psychology and a keen commentary on the violence... Read Full Overview

FOLGER Shakespeare Library THE WORLD'S LEADING CENTER FOR SHAKESPEARE STUDIES "Each edition includes: " - Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play - Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play - Scene-by-scene... Read Full Overview

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.

The Winter's Tale, one of Shakespeare's later romantic comedies, offers a striking and challenging mixture of tragic and violent events,... Read Full Overview

'The work of Shakespeare is virtually infinite' Jorge Luis Borges

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's... Read Full Overview