By: William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Huddlestone (Editor), Sheila Innes (Editor)

Paperback

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Like every other play in the Cambridge School Shakespeare series, The Winter's Tale has been specially prepared to help all students in schools and colleges. This version aims to be different from other editions of the play. It invites you to bring the play to life in your classroom through enjoyable activities that will help increase your understanding. You are encourage to make up your own mind about the play, rather than have someone else's interpretation handed down to you. Whatever you do, remember that Shakespeare wrote his plays to be acted, watched and enjoyed.

About the Author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon where his father was a prosperous glover. His early life is obscure, but he married Anne Hathaway in 1682 with whom he had two children. By 1592 he was establishing himself in London, and over the next twenty years he wrote thirty-seven plays-and contributed to many more-was a prolific poet, and was taken up by several influential patrons. His Sonnets were first printed in 1609 by George Eld for Thomas Thorpe. The identity of Mr. W.H. to whom the Sonnets are dedicated remains a mystery, as does the identity of the aristocratic youth in the Sonnets and the enigmatic Dark Lady.

One of Shakespeare's more problematic romances gets a picture-book treatment in Coville's new rendition. Jealous King Leontes suspects without reason that his wife and best friend are having an affair. Despite the protests of his most trusted advisors, he sentences his wife to death and demands that her newborn babe be cast into the wilderness. There the child is discovered by a kindly shepherd and raised as a peasant until the day a wayfaring prince falls in love with her. In true Shakespearean fashion, all works out well in the end with true identities discovered, families reunited and multiple weddings to boot. For a tale of suspected infidelity and death, author and artist do as much as they can for what boils down to a fairly adult story. Some judicious editing of the text would not have been out of place - the character of Autolycus weighs down an otherwise succinct narrative. Yet the cleverly selected direct quotes and theatrical watercolor and gouache images make this a more than adequate companion to the original play. (Picture book/play. 7-10) (Kirkus Reviews)

HERMIONE, Queen of Sicilia MAMILLIUS, their son

PERDITA, their daughter

POLIXENES, King of BOHEMIA FLORIZELL, his son

CAMILLO, a courtier, friend to Leontes and then to Polixenes ANTIGONUS, a Sicilian courtier

PAULINA, his wife and lady-in-waiting to Hermione CLEOMENES courtier in Sicilia

DION courtier in Sicilia EMILIA, a lady-in-waiting to Hermione

SHEPHERD, foster father to Perdita

SHEPHERD'S SON AUTOLYCUS, former servant to Florizell, now a rogue ARCHIDAMUS, a Bohemian courtier

TIME, as Chorus

TWO LADIES attending on Hermione

LORDS, SERVANTS, and GENTLEMEN attending on Leontes An OFFICER of the court

A MARINER A JAILER

MOPSA shepherdess in Bohemia DORCAS shepherdess in Bohemia

SERVANT to the Shepherd

SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES

Twelve COUNTRYMEN disguised as satyrs

ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter Camillo and Archidamus.

ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLO I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us; we will be justified in our loves. For indeed --

CAMILLO Beseech you --

ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge. We cannot with such magnificence -- in so rare -- I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.

ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods, and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, hath been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies, that they have seemed to be together though absent, shook hands as over a vast, and embraced as it were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves.

ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young Prince Mamillius. It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.

CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a gallant child -- one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO Yes, if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS If the King had no son, they would desire to five on crutches till he had one.

They exit.

List of characters
The Winter's Tale
Shakespeare's Late Plays
What is The Winter's Tale about?
Telling the tale
Women in The Winter's Tale
The language of The Winter's Tale
The jealousy of Leontes
Designing The Winter's Tale
Critics' forum
William Shakespeare
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 9780521599559
ISBN-10: 0521599555
Series: Cambridge School Shakespeare
Audience: Primary / High School
For Ages: 16+ years old
For Grades: 11+
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 224
Published: 4th February 1999
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Dimensions (cm): 22.8 x 15.2  x 1.3
Weight (kg): 0.358