Star-Crossed and Storm-Tossed

Four of Shakespeare's most studied and performed plays, from his most famous love story to his farewell to the stage.

Romeo and Juliet tells of two young lovers from feuding families in Verona. Julius Caesar follows the conspiracy to murder Rome's greatest general and the civil war that follows. In The Merchant of Venice, a merchant borrows money on a bond of a pound of flesh, and in The Tempest, the magician Prospero, shipwrecked on an island with his daughter, raises a storm to bring his enemies to him.

Love, power, justice and forgiveness: four plays that every reader of Shakespeare should know.