Was anyone undone by fire, or turned to ashes through desire?Two young trans people find love whilst escaping oppression; a shipwrecked migrant searches for his family; goddesses clash; parents fret; an alchemist brews magic and a teenage Cupid sets hearts on fire - causing chaos and near disaster. And all the while, time is running out! Galatea is an unapologetically queer tale of love, magic, and the importance of welcoming outsiders.Galatea was...

During Shakespeare's lifetime, John Lyly was repeatedly described as the central figure in contemporary English literature. This book takes that claim seriously, asking how and why Lyly was considered the most important writer of his time.Kesson traces Lyly's work in prose fiction and the theatre, demonstrating previously unrecognised connections between these two forms of entertainment. The final chapter examines how his importance to early modern authorship came to be forgotten i...

Engaging with histories of the book and of reading, as well as with studies of material culture, this volume explores ’popularity’ in early modern English writings. Is ’popular’ best described as a theoretical or an empirical category in this period? How can we account for the gap between modern canonicity and early modern print popularity? How might we weight the evidence of popularity from citations, serial editions, print runs, reworkings, or extant copies? Is something that sells a lot...

'Every page is a window open in Heaven … interwoven designs companion the poems, and gold and yellow tints diffuse themselves over the page like summer clouds. The poems [of Song of Innocence] are the morning song of Blake's genius.' - W.B. Yeats'Blake sang of the ideal world, of the truth of the intellect, and of the divinity of imagination … The only writer to have written songs for children with the soul of a child … he holds, in my view, a unique position because he unites intellectual...

From the first flush of love, through courtship and vows of eternal fidelity, to serving the writs and drowning your sorrows, 'The Nation's Favourite Love Poems' will meet all your romantic requirements. In this selection of 100 popular poems, poets of every age consider that most universal of themes: love. As well as traditional lovers' favourites such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How do I love thee?' and Shakespeare's 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' there are contemporary v...

Actor, producer and director Ben Crystal revisits his acclaimed book on Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death, updating and adding three new chapters.Shakespeare on Toast knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of the Bard, revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling, uplifting drama.The bright words and colourful characters of the greatest hack writer are brought brilliantly to life, sweeping cobwebs from the Bard – his langua...

Ian McKellen discusses playing Macbeth, in this ebook taken from Shakespeare On Stage: Thirteen Leading Actors on Thirteen Key Roles.In each volume of the Shakespeare On Stage series, a leading actor takes us behind the scenes, recreating in detail a memorable performance in one of Shakespeare's major roles. They discuss their character, working through the play scene by scene, with refreshing candour and in forensic detail. The result is a masterclass on playing ...

George Washington's Rules of Civility is a short list of 110 principles or maxims by which, supposedly, proper decent people must abide. While some of these maxims may seem dated others are still quite apt for today. A quick read, George Washington's Rules of Civility is an insightful look at the manners and customs of an age gone by.

'Electrifying . . . This four-hour epic of ambition and power is a sinewy reworking of Aeschylus that explodes into a cacophonous climax.' GUARDIAN *****Aeschylus' Oresteia opens with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to the gods; an act which sets in motion a bloody cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. When he in turn is killed at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, their son Orestes takes up the mantle of avenging his father, continuing the bloodshed u...

From The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the early 1590s to The Two Noble Kinsmen at the end of his career around 1614, Shakespeare wrote at least eighteen plays that can be called 'comedies': a far higher number than that for any other genre in which he wrote. So what is a Shakespearean comedy? We associate these plays with such themes as mistaken identities, happy marriages, and exuberant cross dressing, but how representative are these of the oeuvre as a whole? In this ...

Alan Rickman discusses playing Jaques in Shakespeare's As You Like It, in this ebook taken from Shakespeare On Stage: Volume 2 - Twelve Leading Actors on Twelve Key Roles.In each volume of the Shakespeare On Stage series, a leading actor takes us behind the scenes of a landmark Shakespearean production, recreating in detail their memorable performance in a major role. They lead us through the choices they made in rehearsal, and how the character works in ...

Unlock the more straightforward side of Macbeth with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of Macbeth by William Shakespeare is a world famous tragedy and a gripping story of murder and fate, in which a man’s thirst for power leads to his downfall. Shakespeare is widely considered the greatest writer in the English language and his timeless classics continue to be performed and loved around the...