The Merry Wives of Windsor & The Comedy of Errors & Measure for Measure

About the Book

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, MEASURE FOR MEASURE

The Shakespeare Novels

The novelization of Shakespeare’s plays adds an entirely new dimension to the enjoyment and fuller appreciation of his work, while generally paralleling the plays scene by scene, and there’s absolutely no better way to learn the plays than through reading the novels.  Although Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven magnificent plays, few people other than English and drama majors are familiar with more than a handful of them. Yet all his plays are intricately plotted and among them they contain all the elements of great fiction: romance, comedy, tragedy, intrigue, dramatic climaxes, surprise twists and denouements, war, murder, rape, incest, mystery, madness, revenge, deadly duels, the clash of mighty opposites, noble sacrifices, tyranny, villainous plots, horror, superstition, the supernatural, ghosts, mistaken identity, religion, miracles, panoramic epics, history, hilarity, delight, farce, sagacity, and the world’s greatest love stories, including deadly triangles, suicides, dark rendevous, pandered love, sizzling sensuality, jealousy, star-crossed lovers, summer love, eternal love, and even the inimitable Falstaff in love, by order of Queen Bess.  Although Shakespeare did say “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love,” his great love stories give that quip the lie.  Now fortunately you don’t have to go to school and take a class in English lit to understand and enjoy Shakespeare.  Here are the world’s most memorable plays in everyday English, in easy, highly readable novel form, written initially for the student and the playgoer yes, as they follow the plays fairly closely, but really for anyone seeking a great story.  An entirely new perspective on Shakespeare, a totally new “paradigm” in the sense of the word as defined by people motivator

Stephen Covey.

Shakespeare as you’ve never known him, except that ironically, this time, you will!

CTRandall

As the author is more concerned with his role as a teacher than as a writer, he invites critical comments and suggestions, including errata, which he can incorporate in a second or subsequent edition.  The author especially wants to hear from students and playgoers who find this or other novels in the series helpful in their study and/or fuller enjoyment of Shakespeare.  Observations from other Shakespeareans are cordially invited and will be especially appreciated.  Please include permission (or nonpermission) to quote your comments.  Xlibris.com or  ShakespeareNovels.com

The Merry Wives of Windsor The Novel.  This story might never have been told, except for the intervention of no less a personage than that of Her Most Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the First.  For sadly, as we all know, Sir John Falstaff passed on in Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth, just as we looked forward to the fat knight’s enormous presence on the glorious field at Agincourt — hoping for an even more flamboyant repetition of the gallant behavior he exhibited when he rose from seeming death at Shrewsbury and slew the already dead Hotspur, in The First Part of Henry the Fourth.

Thus we were fated to forgo the considerable pleasure of seeing at least once more the merry shaking of the heavy timbers of the stage as Falstaff burst upon us with his ponderous stride while raising the rafters of the fartherest gallery with his bellowing voice and booming laugh.  Except that Queen Bess loved and missed the fat, roguish knight so much, Sir John Falstaff would have remained forever dead to those packed houses which cheered and hooted him, laughed with and at him, and cried with and for him.  The groundlings, that eager assortment of poor clerks, apprentices and ne’er-do-wells sneaking away from their chores

About the Author

(Bio for author listing on web site) The author is a longtime teacher of Shakespeare who has through a fifteen-year project converted the immortal Bard’s plays into novels in order to make all of them understandable and relevant, especially as the number of Shakespeare’s plays taught in school is limited to so few.