The Merry Wives of Windsor

by William Shakespeare

Overview

Falstaff arrives in Windsor very short on money. He decides, to obtain financial advantage, that he will court two wealthy married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters and asks his servants - Pistol and Nym - to deliver them to the wives. When they refuse, Falstaff sacks them, and, in revenge, the men tell Ford and Page (the husbands) of Falstaff's intentions. Page is not concerned, but the jealous Ford persuades the Host of the Garter Inn to introduce him to Falstaff as a 'Master Brook' so that he can find out Falstaff's plans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781979816755
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	11/17/2017
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.34(d)
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare and of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.

Date of Death:

2018

Place of Birth:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Place of Death:

Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

Read an Excerpt

Act 1 Scene 1 running scene 1
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Table of Contents

Introduction: the date and first occasion of the play; The world of the play; Some moments in the play; The play on the stage; Recent critical and stage interpretations; Note on the text; List of characters; THE PLAY; Textual analysis; Reading list.

Editorial Reviews

Wells does truly admirable work in her edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor . . . [her edition] will be wonderfully informative and illuminating for undergraduates, graduate students, and educated readers alike. . . . Wells provides wonderful discussions of the play's performance history and its film history . . . [as well as] a masterful discussion of how to read the play as performance.”
—W. Reginald Rampone Jr., South Carolina State University, in Sixteenth Century Journal
 

From the Publisher