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An engaging comedy of love, The Two Gentlemen of Verona deals with the conflict between friendship and romance, and features one of Shakespeare´s most memorable clowns. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by Norman Sanders with an introduction by Russell Jackson.

´Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale´

Leaving behind both home and beloved, a young man travels to Milan to meet his closest friend. Once there, however, he falls in love with his friend´s new sweetheart and resolves to seduce her. Love-crazed and desperate, he is soon moved to commit cynical acts of betrayal, revealing how passion can prove more powerful than even the strongest loyalty owed to a friend.

This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare´s life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to the play, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essay discussing performance options on both stage and screen, and a commentary.

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William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote about 38 plays (the precise number is uncertain), many of which are regarded as the most exceptional works of drama ever produced, including Romeo and Juliet (1595), Henry V (1599), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1606) and Macbeth (1606), as well as a collection of 154 sonnets, which number among the most profound and influential love poetry in English. Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616.

William Shakespeare was born in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world´s pre-eminent dramatist.

Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Norman Sanders was Professor of Shakespeare at the University of Tennessee.

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