A selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets read by some of Britain’s best actors including David Tennant and Juliet Stevenson. Tennant recorded his  sonnets just after his recently acclaimed performance in Hamlet so the bard was very much on his mind!

Abridged audiobook edition.

Read by David Tennant, Juliet Stevenson, Anton Lesser, Maxine Peake, Stella Gonet and others.

1 CD. 75 minutes.

Synopsis

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, one of the most remarkable collections of poetry, was first published in 1609, 400 years ago, by Mr Thomas Thorpe. Naxos AudioBooks marks the occasion with a selection of 80 of the finest, read by leading actors. The selection includes famous ones such as ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ as well as lesser well-known sonnets though of equally fine stature.

Reviews

'Naxos AudioBooks and David Timson offer a collection of the best of Shakespeare’s love sonnets in celebration of the 400th anniversary of their first appearance in print. They’re perfect for audio. Director Timson lets the poems speak for themselves through the voices and interpretations of a group of diverse and talented actors. Listeners are treated to some of the Bard’s lesser-known sonnets as well as some of his most famous, including David Tenant’s reading of Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”; Juliet Stevenson’s version of Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds...‘” and David Timson‘s rendering of Sonnet 29: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes...” Each gem illustrates Shakespeare’s take on the multifaceted nature of love, from obsession and possession to longing and delight. A must for any collection. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award' S.J.H., AudioFile

About the Author

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford upon Avon in April, 1564.  He was the third child, and eldest son, of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.  Little is known of Shakespeare’s early life; but it is unlikely that a writer who dramatized such an incomparable range and variety of human kinds and experiences should have spent his early manhood entirely in placid pursuits in a country town.  There is one tradition, not universally accepted, that he fled from Stratford because he was in trouble for deer stealing, and had fallen foul of Sir Thomas Lucy, the local magnate; another that he was for some time a schoolmaster. When Shakespeare died fourteen of his plays had been separately published in Quarto booklets.  In 1623 his surviving fellow actors, John Heming and Henry Condell, with the co-operation of a number of printers, published a collected edition of thirty-six plays in one Folio volume, with an engraved portrait, memorial verses by Ben Jonson and others, and an Epistle to the Reader in which Heming and Condell make the interesting note that Shakespeare’s ‘hand and mind went together, and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.’ More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation