Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. The play is an unflattering depiction of the short reign of Richard III of England. While generally classified as a history, as grouped in the First Folio, the play is sometimes called a tragedy (as in the first quarto). It picks up the story from Henry VI, Part 3 and concludes the historical series that stretches back to Richard II.

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. The play is an unflattering depiction of the short reign of Richard III of England. While generally classified as a history, as grouped in the First Folio, the play is sometimes called a tragedy (as in the first quarto). It picks up the story from Henry VI, Part 3 and concludes the historical series that stretches back to Richard II.

Among the most enduring poetry of all time, William Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets address such eternal themes as love, beauty, honesty, and the passage of time. Written primarily in four-line stanzas and iambic pentameter, Shakespeare’s sonnets are now recognized as marking the beginning of modern love poetry. The sonnets have been translated into all major written languages and are frequently used at romantic celebrations. Known as “The Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare’s works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare’s innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Richard II by William Shakespeare . Richard II is one of Shakespeare's finest works: lucid, eloquent, and boldly structured. It can be seen as a tragedy, or a historical play, or a political drama, or as one part of a vast dramatic cycle which helped to generate England's national identity. Today, to some of us, Richard II may appear conservative; but, in Shakespeare's day, it could appear subversive: 'I am Richard II', declared an indignant Queen Elizabeth. Numerous recent revivals in the theatre and on screen have demonstrated the enduring power and poignancy of this drama of the downfall of an egoistic but pitiable monarch.

From acclaimed historian Chris Skidmore comes the authoritative biography of Richard III, England’s most controversial king, a man alternately praised as a saint and cursed as a villain. Richard III is one of English history’s best known and least understood monarchs. Immortalized by Shakespeare as a hunchbacked murderer, the discovery in 2012 of his skeleton in a Leicester parking lot re-ignited debate over the true character of England’s most controversial king. Richard was born into an age of brutality, when civil war gripped the land and the Yorkist dynasty clung to the crown with their fingertips. Was he really a power-crazed monster who killed his nephews, or the victim of the first political smear campaign conducted by the Tudors? In the first full biography of Richard III for fifty years, Chris Skidmore draws on new manuscript evidence to reassess Richard’s life and times. Richard III examines in intense detail Richard’s inner nature and his complex relations with those around him to unravel the mystery of the last English monarch to die on the battlefield.

First published in 1968. Providing a detailed and rigorous analysis of Richard III, this Commentary reveals every nuance of meaning whilst maintaining a firm grasp on the structure of the play. The result is an outstanding lesson in the methodology of Shakespearian criticism as well as an essential study for students of the early plays of Shakespeare.

The final novel of one of America’s most beloved writers—a tale of degeneration, corruption, and spiritual crisis A Penguin Classic In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American.” Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of Steinbeck’s last novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards. Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty, and today ranks alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction and notes by leading Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.