کتاب Four Comedies of Shakespeare Original The Taming of the Shrew Robust and bawdy The Taming of the Shrew captivates audiences with outrageous humor as Katharina the shrew engages in a contest of willsand lovewith her bridegroom Petruchio in a comedy of unmatched theatrical brilliance filled with visual gags and witty repartee  A Midsummer Nights Dream Fairy magic love spells and an enchanted wood turn the mismatched rivalries of four young lovers into a marvelous mixup of desire and enchantment all touched by Shakespeares inimitable vision of the intriguing relationship between dreams and the waking world  The Merchant of Venice This dark comedy of love and money contains one of the truly mythic figures in literatureShylock the Jewish moneylender The pound of flesh he demands as payment of Antonios debt has become a universal metaphor for vengeance Here pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglements to display the extraordinary power and range of Shakespeare at his best  Twelfth Night Set in a topsyturvy world like a holiday revel this comedy juxtaposes a romantic plot involving separated twins and mistaken identity with a more satiric one about the humiliation of a pompous killjoy The hilarity is touched with melancholy and the play ends not with laughter but with a clowns plaintive song  Each Edition Includes  Comprehensive explanatory notes  Vivid introductions and the most uptodate 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