The Annotated Household Shakspeare The Dramatic Works Of William Shakspeare With Explanatory Notes Ed By W H D Adams With 370 Engr From The Orig Designs Of F Howard

The New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare's plays puts readers in touch with current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. Each volume contains full explanatory notes on pages facing the text of the play and a helpful introduction to Shakespeare's language. At the conclusion of each play is a full essay by a scholar who assesses the play in the light of today's interests and concerns.

Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to forswear the company of women for three years of study and fasting, and their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies. In an untraditional ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess's father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalization, and reality versus fantasy.