Shakespeare Stories II

Front Cover
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995 - 284 pages
In this magnificent companion volume to Shakespeare Stories, superbly illustrated by Michael Foreman, Leon Garfield presents in narrative form another nine of Shakespeare's best-loved plays. Skillfully, the author conveys the plots, characters, settings and moods of the original works, and reveals their unique theatrical impact for today's reader. While he has refashioned the dramas as stories, Garfield has retained much of Shakespeare's own language, so that his tellings remain true to the essential spirit of the plays themselves. From the light romance and comedy of Much Ado About Nothing to the dark political drama of Richard III, all of the flavor and tone of the plays is evoked in these clever retellings, accompanied by stunning paintings which complement and reinforce the text. By turns playful, stirring, gentle and stark, Michael Foreman's color and black-and-white illustrations provide a wonderfully rich visual interpretation of the many-faceted masterworks.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Much Ado About Nothing
7
Julius Caesar
35
Antony and Cleopatra
65
Measure for Measure
99
As You Like It
129
Cymbeline
163
King Richard the Third
197
The Comedy of Errors
229
The Winters Tale
253
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About the author (1995)

Author Leon Garfield was born in Brighton, England on July 14, 1921. When World War II began, he stopped studying art and joined the British Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium, he met Vivien Alcock, who would later become his wife as well as a popular children's author. After the war, he worked as a biochemical laboratory technician until the 1960's when he became a full-time writer. He wrote more than thirty books for both children and adults and scripted Shakespeare: The Animated Tales for television. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog won the first ever Guardian Award and was made into a television series. He also won the Carnegie Medal for The God Beneath the Sea, the Whitbread Award for John Diamond, and the Phoenix Award for Smith. His novel Black Jack was made into a full-length feature film and was the joint winner of the International Jury Award at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. He died in London on June 2, 1996.

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