Shakespeare and the American Story

When scholar and Everyday Shakespeare host Caroline Bicks gained unprecedented access to Stephen King’s personal archives, she discovered that the Bard of Avon and the King of Horror have more in common than you might think.

Traveling the world to see as many copies of the Shakespeare First Folio as possible, Greg Doran views an unusual copy at the Craven Museum, one in which all the comedies have been removed. He learns Charlotte Bronte may have read this copy.

One of Shakespeare’s most-performed plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings together young lovers, mischievous fairies, and amateur actors for a magical evening in the Athenian woods. Explore some of the comedy’s most well-known quotes.

Scholar James Shapiro looks at how Shakespeare has always “served as a canary in a coal mine, alerting us to threats to our fragile democracy.” He offers as a recent example the 2017 production of Julius Caesar in Central Park.

Shakespeare constantly evokes the sea in his plays. Try our quiz about how sea breezes, storms, and saltwater make their way through his works.

An introduction to the so‑called ‘temporary’  boards bindings that are still on our copy of the first American edition of Shakespeare.