Washoe County Library System

Often credited with creating a popular movie audience for Shakespeare, Kenneth Branagh has wanted for many years to bring to the screen the complete, full-length version of Hamlet. His desire becomes a reality when this epic drama, featuring an all-star cast and produced and directed by Branagh, comes to theaters this fall. This tie-in book includes Branagh's Introduction and screenplay, a production diary, color stills, and more.

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

Goethe's most complex and profound work, Faust was the effort of the great poet's entire lifetime. Written over 60 years, it can be read as a document of Goethe's moral and artistic development. Hailed as Germany's greatest contribution to world literature, Goethe's Faust drew upon a folktale and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus for inspiration. But in this epic version, Faust sells his soul not for magic powers but for a heightened sense of existence. Part...

Aeschylean tragedy represents the earliest extant Greek tragedy of the late-6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., as well as being one of the pinnacles of the art form. It is the product of an Athens that in the late 6th century devised and implemented a form of government known as democracy; not of a parliamentary or representative sort, but a direct democracy, one in which the Athenian citizen governed himself, which is what democracy means: rule by the...

"Pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and influenced three of his greatest tragedies written that year - King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra"--

"A German play about a scholar making a pact with the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge."-- Hailed as Germany's greatest contribution to world literature, Goethe's Faust drew upon a folktale and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus for inspiration. But in this epic version, Faust sells his soul not for magic powers but for a heightened sense of existence. Part One covers his pact with Mephistopheles and seduction of an innocent girl; Part Two relates his...