The Wordsworth Classic Shakespeare series,with romeo and juliet,henry V and the merchant of venice as its inaugural volumes,presents a newly-edited sequence of william shakespeare's works.The textual editing takes a account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappreisal.

Its lyricism,comedy (both broad and subtle) and magical transformations have long made A Midsummer Night's Dream one of the most popular of shakespeare's works.The supernatural and the mundane,theillusory and the substantial,are allshimmeringly blended.Love is treated as tragic,poignant,absurd and farcical.'Lord,what fools these mortals be'!,jeers Robin Goodfellow;but the joke may be on him and his master Oberon when Bottom the weaver,his head transformed into that of an ass,is embraced by the voluptuously amorous titania.Recent stage-productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream have emphasised the enchanting,spectacular,ambiguous and erotically jouous aspects of thes magical drama which culminates in a multiple celebration of marriage.