Editions

Sonnets

Sonnets

‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom’

Sonnets are for romantics, starry-eyed lovers and ardent hearts. And Shakespeare’s sonnets are the best ever written.

But this is why they are also for cynics, for star-crossed lovers and for those who know the anguish of unrequited love.

Some of them are written to a young man, some of them to a woman. And although the poems are full of mystery – why did Shakespeare write them, what was his sexuality? – each one speaks to us from across the centuries of love, hate and the intensity of being alive.

Includes exclusive content: In the 'Backstory' you can find a short, handy, funny guide to everything you might want to know about Shakespeare and his sonnets.

‘This is a crazy, all-consuming, feverish and sweaty love; love, in all its uncut, full-strength intensity; an adolescent love’ Don Paterson, Guardian

Reviews

  • The great master who knew everything...an unspeakable source of delight

    Charles Dickens

  • Every age has reinvented the Bard in its own image. Renaissance Man or post-modern angst... Shakespeare haunts our language

    Independent

  • Shakespeare was the most consummate genius of all time

    Peter Ackroyd

  • Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third

    T.S. Eliot

  • Every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself

    Alexander Pope

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About the Author

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote about 38 plays (the precise number is uncertain), many of which are regarded as the most exceptional works of drama ever produced, including Romeo and Juliet (1595), Henry V (1599), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1606) and Macbeth (1606), as well as a collection of 154 sonnets, which number among the most profound and influential love poetry in English. Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616.

William Shakespeare

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Extracts

A Midsummer Night's Dream colouring adventure

Get your pens and pencils ready to bring colour to Oberon’s magical forest from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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Extracts

Six iconic moments of Shakespeare you should hear

Listen to iconic moments from some of our favourite Shakespeare plays hand-picked from the Classic BBC Radio Shakespeare series, featuring performers such as Ian McKellen

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