Monarch Notes Study Guides: William Shakespeare s a Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's incomparable romantic comedy takes on a new and vivid life in these brilliant images by one of the 20th century's leading illustrators. The fairy world of A Midsummer Night's Dream is the perfect milieu for the artistry of Arthur Rackham, a popular illustrator of fairy tales who possessed a striking gift for depicting fanciful creatures. His dreamlike visions provide a series of unique portraits from the enchanted wood outside ancient Athena, where Oberon and Titania rule a kingdom of diminutive sprites.
Rackham's career coincided with the era known as the Golden Age of Illustration, an age that witnessed the rise of increasingly sophisticated color printing techniques. His interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which first appeared in 1908, received the full benefit of the improved technology, and this faithful reprint offers a quality of printing and sharpness of reproduction that rivals the limited and first editions. The complete text of the play appears here, along with 40 full-color and numerous black-and-white illustrations—a splendid tribute by a master of fantasy art to an immortal play.