Hamlet: Timeless Shakespeare

Written by William Shakespeare

Narrated by Saddleback Educational Publishing

The ghost of the murdered king begs his son to get revenge. But young Prince Hamlet is beset by doubts and unable to bring himself to action. If he waits too long, however, he could well become the murderer's next target.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781612475288

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

Reviews for Hamlet

[dmcrimson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest works of writing ever created. I consider it to be the best example of expressing epic, universal themes with personal struggles. There are some rough spots within the play (More if you easily tire of monologues), but taken as a whole, Hamlet is almost without peer in quality.

[cyndavaz · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Forced reading from high school - I hated every moment of this.

[tzyuhas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

William Shakespeare's HAMLET is argueably the best play/ book every written. It follows a story of the young prince Hamlet and his quest to avenge his father. As one travels through the play they also enter a complex world of introspection, doubt, struggle, and beauty. Even read for the 20th time there are new things to glean from the greatest work ever written. This book will captivate and mezmerize.

[snozzberry_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite Shakespeare works.

[kmass_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

By far the best Shakespeare play ever, and that's saying a lot. It's just so incredibly complex. Hamlet's soliloquies give insight into the human psyche that even most novels, let alone dramas, can't match. And Horatio just might be my favorite Shakespeare character of all time,

[takeitorleaveit_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

the dark prince of Denmark. so emotional. an absolute classic as important as Oedipus Rex.

[tonyasbooks_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare is not easy to understand. This version tries to make it easier for you by defining many archaic terms and spacing out the lines so that it doesn't look like a dense book, and so that you can add your own annotations. I read this in my high school senior English class (albeit with the CliffNotes edition, which has handy explanatory summaries but fewer definitions), and I have to say that the play is easier to appreciate with a teacher pointing out Shakespeare's literary techniques and explaining the situations.

[ashdwyer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While this book is incredibly depressing, the story is one that holds your attention the entire time. Shakespeare seems to be good at doing that...

[kswanteck · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare is good to teach in any classroom, because it is so timeless. The struggles Hamlet faces throughout this play, wondering who he is and what he should do, are things that everyone goes through at some point in their life. Students could really see character development and inner struggles within a character while reading Hamlet. It could also be a good way to get students to interact with a text, because it is a play and they could act it out.

[funfunyay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Who wants to read Hamlet? Ew. Ew Hamlet.But I enjoyed it. Despite being long long long and so thick, the pase was acutally quite brisk, and the language gorgeous, and I have fond memories of Hamlet. Compare Hamlet to Phaedra - Phaedra is a much shorter play, but the titular heroine spends the entirety of the play basically in the throes of the same emotion. Hamlet's issues, although they drag out through the whole play, keep changing and morphing, and corresponding to the action in the play.All in all, I am happy I read it.

[rizeandshine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet is my favorite and most quotable of all Shakespeare's plays. It is much more than a straightforward tale of revenge and focuses a great deal on the philosophical, moral and psychological, and even the reader/audience is left with many unanswered questions at the play's end. However, I prefer to be immersed in a play, listening to the beautiful language, rather than reading the text, so it's difficult for me to rate as simply a book.

[katy89williams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first work by Shakespeare that I had every read, and it was definitely not the last. Hamlet was so captivating and thought provoking that I had to read more of Shakespeare. This was an author that I had not been looking forward to reading, but after reading this I was hooked. I highly recommend it to everyone out there.

[loufreshwater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What didn't I learn from this book? ;-)

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic. I did enjoy reading this and I still have all my original underlines and footnotes on the page. The perfect definition of tragedy!

[kdebros · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic work, full of relevant themes. Hamlet's father dies and his uncle usurps the throne. Hamlet sees his father's ghost and believes that he was told to kill his uncle.

[ysabeau_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Tormented Boy who spawned an entire genus of Tormented Boys. My Ur-story.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorites. Best film adaptation: surprisingly, Mel Gibson's. Branagh's was way too long (yeah, I know, but still) and had Robin Williams in it; we won't talk about Ethan Hawke's.

[foof2you · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hey its Hamlet. What else can I say. You either love it or hate it.

[pluckybamboo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The crazy, classic story about the prince of Denmark, in which everyone dies but Horatio... really delves into the idea of death, insanity, and the line between fantasy and reality. A must read (or see!).

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I refuse to offer up a literary review on Shakespeare. I wouldn't presume. However, I will say that I enjoyed this dark story. Watching a man descend into madness, yet still retain enough sanity to accomplish his purpose is drama at its best. Half the fun for me is finding out where all the quotes one hears all the time come from.

[orix_bluewave · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the tragedy of Shakespeare.But this story don't contain love.This story is a man whose father was killed.So he tried to revenge.Can he accomplish it?

[nikkles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have loved this play since I first read it in high school. I find it both very tragic (but in a heroic kind of way) and very funny. I remember laughing at the fishwife dialogue in the library and my class mate thinking I was terribly odd. It doesn't matter, I still think this book is beautiful to read and very funny.

[nules_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was a reasonably enjoyable Shakespearean play. It's kind of wild. It's not long, but not the shortest of his plays, either.

[lieslmayerson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Life changing. Truly a must read for anyone and everyone. While I know plays are meant to be seen, I honestly think you must create your own interpretation.

[misslizzy_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this play once during my senior year of high school, and have yet to read it since, but something about it makes me like it. Scandal amongst royal families will ALWAYS be interesting, I suppose.

[feelinglistless · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imagine my surprise when browsing through Kernaghan Books in the Wayfarers Shopping Arcade in Southport for these editions when I stumbled across Hamlet somewhat working against the purpose of me utilising these Oxfords to discover literature. Edition editor G.R. Hibbard chooses the First Folio as the basis for his text on the assumption that it was produced from a clean, revised manuscript of the play by Shakespeare himself, a final revision of the material that increases the pace but also clarifies the story in other places. His argument is sound, but I do much prefer the much later Arden 3’s approach of suggesting that all the close textual analysis in the world won’t definitively confirm which of the versions is definitive, so it’s best just to present all three (unless like the RSC edition, the mission is to reproduce an edition of the folio in particular). More inevitably posted here.

[sdtaylor555 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, so I won't rate any of his works very high

[tpoi_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are my favorite Shakespeare plays. I remember being bored to tears reading it in school and then being overwhelmed by the power of Hamlet seeing it performed shortly thereafter. How can you have kids read a play (alone and not aloud)?

[bookwoman247 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is probably the most famous play in the world. It is so well-known that I don't think I need to outline the plot.I can see why this play, and Shakespeare, have wowed audiences and readers through the ages.I find my reactions to the bard's work quite interesting. I don't know if I've gained in literary maturity, or if his writing is so uneven. In either case, while I've certainly enjoyed his works in the past, it isn't until I read Richard III recently that I understood why Shakespeare has been considered so great, so far above any other playwright since his time. I've certianly enjoyed his work, previously, but I had thought him slightly over-rated. Now I know that I was so wrong!In any case, I'm now a confirmed fan of The Bard, and look forward to reading more of his work!

[boltgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hamlet is the most annoying lead in Shakespeare. And the play is the most apt metaphor for the last couple of months of my high school career. Anenergy, baby! It took me forEVER to finish the term paper on the play; Brother Phil graciously gave me a C+ despite me turning it in, oh, probably a month past the due date. And that dinged my GPA just enough for someone else to win the Senior English prize. Ah well. At least it was one of my friends.