Four Great Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Twelfth Night; The Tempest (Signet Classics) Mass Market Paperback – September 1, 1998

Four plays in a single paperback for the price usually charged for a paperback with only one play.

This copy has act and line numbers! I had a hard time finding a copy that said that out right. It’s great for my graduate Shakespeare course.

good

Rather than commenting about the plays themselves, I'm writing about this particular edition. Signet produces good editions of Shakespeare's plays. The footnotes are numerous, and the footnote mark in the body of the text is not intrusive (they use a superscripted 'o' instead of a number). The paper quality is good, and the font is quite clear.This collection of four of the Bard's comedies is a very cost-effective way of getting four books for a lower price than if you bought them separately. It includes a 17-page scholarly introduction that's focused specifically on the four comedies here. The comedies then follow, with no intermediary text.One thing that is missing is the nice introductory 50-page biographical sketch of the Bard found in other Signet Shakespeare books. I also have the Signet editions of Romeo & Juliet and Othello, and both of those have the same 50-page introduction. I do not know if the individual editions of these four comedies have the same, but I would think so. Hence, if you already have another Signet edition of any of the Bard's plays with that introduction, the omission of it here won't be a big deal at all.

It's a good book. It has an easy-to-read layout with round and readable type faces. Unlike many other Shakespeare books, it shows the names of characters in full without abbreviations so that you don't have to memorize the abbreviations or keep on guessing who's speaking at a given time. It also has nice space between each character's speech so that things are not crammed up to save space. It's easier on the eyes.The book also comes with nice, succinct footnotes that explain what words mean in modern English without getting too technical or scholarly. It's a good book that's easy to use, readable, inexpensive and not so academical while providing good information. So, I'm happy with it.