Cedric Watts Books

This edition of Romeo and Juliet is part of the groundbreaking Cambridge School Shakespeare series established by Rex Gibson. Remaining faithful to the series' active approach it treats the play as a script to be acted, explored and enjoyed. As well as the complete script of the play, you will find a variety of classroom-tested activities, an eight-page colour section and a selection of notes including information on characters, performance, history and language.

Loose ends and red herrings are the stuff of detective fiction, and under the scrutiny of master sleuths John Sutherland and Cedric Watts Shakespeare's plays reveal themselves to be as full of mysteries as any Agatha Christie novel. Is it summer or winter in Elsinore? Do Bottom and Titania make love? Does Lady Macbeth faint, or is she just pretending? How does a man putrefy within minutes of his death? Is Cleopatra a deadbeat Mum? And why doesn't Juliet ask 'O Romeo Montague, wherefore art thou Montague?' As Watts and Sutherland explore these and other puzzles Shakespeare's genuius becomes ever more apparent. Speculative, critical, good-humoured and provocative, their discussions shed light on apparent anachronisms, performance and stagecraft, linguistics, Star Trek and much else. Shrewd and entertaining, these essays add a new dimension to the pleasure of reading or watching Shakespeare.

The four tales in this volume share autobiographical origins in Conrad's experience at sea and his exile from Poland, the country of his birth. Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by tempest, and of the stolid captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. In Falk a taciturn young woman is bizarrely courted by a tug-boat master who is haunted by a terrible secret. Amy Foster tells of an emigrant Pole struggling to overcome isolation and prejudice in England. The final tale, The Secret Sharer , is Conrad's most famous short story, a masterpiece of suspense and ambiguity. Giving sanctuary to a fugitive sailor, a young sea-captain risks his ship and his command in order to save him. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.