Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
by
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream current cover A Midsummer Night's Dream
(written circa 1595, first publication 1600)

2004 - New Folger Shakespeare Library (left)

1600 - title page of the first quarto (right)
 A Midsummer Night's Dream 1600 title page
From a book blurb for The Oxford Shakespeare
        A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the best loved of Shakepeare's plays.  It brings together aristocrats, workers, and fairies in a wood outside Athens, and from there the enchantment begins.  Simple and engaging on the surface, it is none the less a highly original and sophisticated work, remarkable for both its literary and its theatrical mastery."

Read for group discussion on October 10, 2007
RATINGS:
How we each rated this book
Dan - Amy 7 stack of books 10   Wow! Don't miss it
8-9  Highly recommended
7    Recommended
5-6  Mild recommendation
3-4  Take your chances
1-2  Below average; skip it
0    Get out the flamethrower!
U    Unfinishable or unreadable
-    Skipped or no rating given
Cheri 8 Barb 10
Aaron 7 Cynthia 8
Jackie 7.5 Ron -
Christine 7 Stephanie 8
Patty -
Several movie versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream:
1999
Kevin Kline (Bottom), Michelle Pfeiffer (Titania), Stanley Tucci (Puck), Rupert Everett (Oberon), Calista Flockhart (Helena), Dominic West (Lysander), Christian Bale (Demetrius), Anna Friel (Hermia), David Stathairn (Theseus), Sophie Marceau (Hippolyta)

1935
James Cagney (Bottom), Dick Powell (Lysander), Mickey Rooney (Puck), Ross Alexander (Demetrius), Olivia de Havilland (Hermia), Jean Muir (Helena)
Bibliography:
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet and playwright.  His plays have been translated into every major language and continue to be performed widely today.

Some of his plays first appeared in print as a series of quartos, but most remained unpublished until 1623 when the posthumous First Folio was published.  The traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies, and histories follows the logic of the First Folio.

Comedies
The Tempest
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado About Nothing
Love's Labour's Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
All's Well That Ends Well
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Winter's Tale
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (not included in the First Folio)
The Two Noble Kinsmen (not included in the First Folio)

Histories
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII

Tragedies
Troilus and Cressida
Coriolanus
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Cymbeline

Shakespeare did not always write alone. Some plays seems to have been collaborate efforts.

Although authorship of the plays and poetry attributed to him has been questioned by some over the years, it is generally accepted in academic circles that Shakespeare's plays were written by Shakespeare of Stratford and not another author.

Links:
William Shakespeare - Wikipedia

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 This page was last updated October 12, 2008