The Tempest

by William Shakespeare, Peter Holland (Editor), Peter Holland (Introduction), Stephen Orgel (Editor), A. R. Braunmuller (Editor)

Overview

This joyous play, the last comedy of Shakespeare's career, sums up his stagecraft with a display of seemingly effortless skill. Prospero, exiled Duke of Milan, living on an enchanted island, has the opportunity to punish and forgive his enemies when he raises a tempest that drives them ashore--as well as to forestall a rebellion, to arrange the meeting of his daughter, Miranda, with an eminently suitable young prince, and, more important, to relinquish his magic powers in recognition of his advancing age. Richly filled with music and magic, romance and comedy, the play's theme of love and reconciliation offers a splendid feast for the senses and the heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143128632
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Series:	Pelican Shakespeare Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.40(d)

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

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "The Tempest"
by .
Copyright © 2016 William Shakespeare.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Shakespeare’s Life
Shakespeare’s Theater
William Shakespeare and The Tempest: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

The Tempest

Appendix A
From Aristotle, Politics (fourth century BCE)

Appendix B
From Ovid, Metamorphoses (8 CE)

Appendix C
From Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, The Second Democrate; or, The Just Causes of the War against the Indians (1547)

Appendix D
From Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1552)

Appendix E
From Michel de Montaigne, “Of the Cannibals” (1578–80)

Appendix F
From William Strachey, A True Reportory of the Wracke (1610)

Appendix G
From John Dryden and William Davenant, The Tempest; or, The Enchanted Island (1670)

Works Cited and Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Gorgeous new Shakespeare paperbacks.” 
—Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“I have been using the Pelican Shakespeare for years in my lecture course—it's invaluable, the best individual-volume series available for students.”
—Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University 

From the Publisher