The Sonnets by William Shakespeare (Illustrated)

By William Shakespeare

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Sonnets’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Shakespeare includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘The Sonnets’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Shakespeare’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786563248

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

Book preview

The Complete Works of

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VOLUME 59 OF 74

The Sonnets

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2012

Version 6

COPYRIGHT

‘The Sonnets’

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition (in 74 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 324 8

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 59 of the Delphi Classics edition of William Shakespeare in 74 Parts. It features the unabridged text of The Sonnets from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of William Shakespeare, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of William Shakespeare or the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

IN 74 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Plays

1, Henry  VI, Part 2

2, Henry  VI, Part 3

3, Henry  VI, Part 1

4, Richard  III

5, The Comedy of Errors

6, Titus Andronicus

7, Taming of the Shrew

8, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

9, Love’s Labour’s Lost

10, Romeo and Juliet

11, Richard II

12, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13, King John

14, The Merchant of Venice

15, Henry IV, Part I

16, Henry IV, Part II

17, Much Ado About Nothing

18, Henry V

19, Julius Caesar

20, As You Like It

21, Twelfth Night

22, Hamlet

23, The Merry Wives of Windsor

24, Troilus and Cressida

25, All’s Well that Ends Well

26, Measure for Measure

27, Othello

28, King Lear

29, Macbeth

30, Antony and Cleopatra

31, Coriolanus

32, Timon of Athens

33, Pericles

34, Cymbeline

35, The Winter’s Tale

36, The Tempest

37, Henry  VIII

38, The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Lost Plays

39, The Lost Plays

The Sources

40, The Plays’ Sources

The Apocryphal Plays

41, Arden of Faversham

42, The Birth of Merlin

43, King Edward  III

44, Locrine

45, The London Prodigal

46, The Puritan

47, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy

48, Sir John Oldcastle

49, Thomas Lord Cromwell

50, A Yorkshire Tragedy

51, Sir Thomas More

52, Fair Em

53, Mucedorus

54, The Merry Devil of Edmonton

55, Edmund Ironside

56, Thomas of Woodstock

57, Vortigern and Rowena

The Adaptations

58, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Poetry

59, The Sonnets

60, Venus and Adonis

61, The Rape of Lucrece

62, The Passionate Pilgrim

63, The Phoenix and the Turtle

64, A Lover’s Complaint

The Apocryphal Poetry

65, To the Queen

66, A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter

67, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

The Criticism

68, The Criticism

The Biographies

69, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear by Nicholas Rowe

70, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters by Henry Norman Hudson

71, Life of William Shakespeare by Sir Sidney Lee

72, Shakespeare’s Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson

73, The People for Whom Shakespeare Wrote by Charles Dudley Warner

Resources

74, Resources

www.delphiclassics.com

The Sonnets

Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets deal with themes of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto and sonnets 138 and 144 were previously published in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim. The quarto ends with A Lover’s Complaint, a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal.

The first 126 sonnets are written to a young man — the poet’s patron — urging him to marry and have children, in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation. These sonnets also mention a rival poet and the poet’s own mistress. From sonnet 127 onwards, Shakespeare addresses a Dark Lady, who he confesses his love for and often speaks of in a disparaging tone.  The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the little love-god Cupid and many scholar’s have questioned their authenticity.

List of sonnets in numerical order

List of sonnets by first lines

The first printing of the sonnets

The 3rd Earl of Southampton — Shakespeare’s patron to whom the sonnets are inscribed

Sonnet I.

From fairest creatures we desire increase

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,   5

Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,   10

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

List of sonnets in numerical order

List of sonnets by first lines

Sonnet II.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow

WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,

Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask’d, where all thy beauty lies,   5

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,

If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine   10

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

  This were to be new made when thou art old,

  And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

List of sonnets in numerical order

List of sonnets by first lines

Sonnet III.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

LOOK in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother,

For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb   5

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;   10

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

  But if thou live, remember’d not to be,

  Die single,