Three Classical Tragedies: Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus

Titus Andronicus * Timon of Athens * Coriolanus

Each Edition Includes:

Comprehensive explanatory notes placed on pages facing the text of the play

Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship

Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English

Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories

An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

Titus Andronicus
This, Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, is also his bloodiest and most horror-filled. A Roman general, to appease the spirit of his dead son, sacrifices the son of a captive Goth queen—and sets in motion a remorseless cycle of revenge and counterrevenge. The play’s vivid spectacle of violence stuns audiences with rape, murder, mutilation, and unmitigated cruelty.

Timon of Athens
This stark drama—in some ways Shakespeare’s most bitter play—is a brilliant psychological portrait of a wealthy Athenian lord whose extraordinary trust and love for others turns to hate and spite when, bankrupted by his generosity, he is overwhelmed by the indifference and ingratitude of those he had thought friends.

Coriolanus
The arrogance of a Roman military hero puts him in conflict with the people of Rome when the aristocrat is unwilling to compromise with the commoners he so despises. Compellingly relevant today, Shakespeare’s last tragedy—from its opening scene of popular unrest to its chilling climax of betrayal and murder—takes an unwavering, ironic look at political extremism.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’s Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.