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Excellent "lost" stories
Although I LOVE reading vampire novels/stories, there was a time I believed that it may not be correct that I read these stories, or have them in my house because of my religious beliefs. So, I sold a couple of my books in a garage sale, Dracula's Brood, included!I couldn't stop regretting it (for years), and I didn't stop thinking about it until I found it again- that's how much I enjoyed that book! ... Read more

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The times have forced changes in the way we look at "Richard II" more than any other of Shakespeare's plays. What to his contemporaries was a balanced dramatisation of the central political and constitutional issue of the time, how to cope with an unjust ruler, has in the last century or so been translated into the poetic fall of a tragic hero. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Try a different publisher!
I'm not terribly fond of this publisher's edition. The first thing I noticed was that the book is bulky and cumbersome; it is far too thick for a book of its size, rendering one-handed reading highly difficult. The notes and supplemental material cover as thick a section as the text itself--which isn't inherently a bad thing--but it makes keeping the book open wide enough to read without cracking the spine almost impossible.

In addition to the book's width being too short to comfortably hold, it also means numerous lines must carry over into the next line. While this is annoying, it would not be an issue, except the line numberings appear to be done automatically and so include these one- or two-word spillovers as a separate line. This means that when my professor references a certain line number from his edition, I have to hunt around to find the corresponding section. I feel that a work such as this, with distinctive, predetermined lines, should not undergo different numbering conventions.

Finally, I believe the annotations are poorly done. I have read many different publishers' versions of Shakespeare, and I have to say this is one of the few times I've ever wished more information were provided. Often I feel books annotate more than necessary with commonly recognized definitions or explaining easily understood syntax. However, I have found myself repeatedly looking to the annotations for a definition to some archaic word or unclear usage only to be disappointed. Also, --and this is more just a pet peeve-- the annotated words do not have any sort of textual indication, such as a number or bubble. I used to think that was distracting and wished it gone; well, now I have an edition without it and it is even more inconvenient, as I have to check the annotations page to see whether a word even has an explanation. The annotations also often spill over onto the next page, causing the reader to have to flip back and forth.

Overall, I feel the text and annotations of this edition were poorly organized, resulting in difficulty for the reader.

good condition. fast service.
The product came within a couple days of ordering it, which was amazing because I needed it for school. And the condition is good. It was from a library, so it had the plastic still on it, which preserved the book itself.

Poet King
Richard II is a lyrical treat for the reader, and one marvels at the creation of a character as complex as Richard. King Richard is a hopelessly deluded and inept monarch who believes supremely in the divine ordination of kings. He leans on this belief to the exclusion of all of the other king's responsibilities. He makes one poor decision after another, and never reflects on the choice or its consequences before he makes them. However, we still feel a tug at the heart when this monarch is murdered, and this is attributable only to his glorious poetry. Richard speaks in some of Shakespeare's finest verse, and he has the mind for metaphor. I would recommend reading Shakespeare's History plays in order of the king's reign, and one comes to appreciate the complexities and strength of Shakespeare's storytelling.
There really are no exceptional characters in this play other than Richard. His antagonist Henry Bolingbroke is a cold hearted dud (and master politician) who plays to the common man and ruthlessly kills those who oppose him. All the while, telling us, and himself, that all his actions are justified and are the results of other's choices. Really he is no different from Richard, except he lacks the King's sense of poetry and theater. There are also some good speeches from secondary characters in this text, especially John of Gaunt. Shakespeare's genius is too large to be contained to only the main characters.
Richard IIis worthy of a read, if only for the extraordinary experience of feeling revulsion AND pity for the title character.

Playing with Power
The first of the bard's great Henry tetrology does not have the power or greatness of the its titular character to the extent that the latter plays have, but it still contains some of Shakespeare's greatest soliloquies. Richard II orates famously:
Of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so -- for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

Richard the II is a tragedy about folly, about the farce of monarchical politics. It is clearly ahead of its time, though it falls short of the philosophical depth that Shakespeare would reach in such masterpieces as Hamlet and Macbeth. An indispensable part of the canon all the same.

Each substance of grief has twenty shadows
Shakespeare's age was the high renaissance in England.Most of the plays were performed at the Globe.The date of the writing and the first performance of RICHARD II is 1592.Richard has two roles.They are God's deputy and Adam's heir.

A Machiavellian conflict between the king and his usurper is set forth in the play.Richard exiles Mowbray and Bolingbroke.John of Gaunt is sick and England is sick.England is subject to misrule by Richard, Gaunt asserts.

Following the death ofJohn of Gaunt, traitors, so-called, appear.Many of the nobles in the kingdom go over to the side of Bolingbroke, (Gaunt's son, also known as Henry IV).

It is Act III and Richard lands in Wales.His rule still shows outward splendor.When he learns of Bolingbroke's advance, he loses his air of authority.Richard learns that his uncle, the Duke of York, has joined with Bolingbroke's forces.

Bolingbroke seeks to have his banishment reversed and his lands restored.(At first he did not seek a complete regime shift.) Richard is imprisoned at Pomfret Castle.His queen is sent to France.Sir Pierce Exton slays Richard. ... Read more

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A paperback edition of a title from the GREAT LIVES series, first published in 1987. A biography of Ludwig van Beethoven. Illustrated with colour and black and white photographs and artwork. ... Read more

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Sustainable Water Services: A Procedural Guide is the result of the Sustainable Water industry Asset Resource Decisions (SWARD) project, undertaken by a consortium of UK academics in collaboration with water service providers in Scotland, England and Romania. It has been developed to act as a practical tool to assist with the explicit inclusion of 'sustainability' in the decision-making processes of those responsible for providing water services. The book contains a framework that comprises a set of decision support processes that can be used by water service providers to explicitly incorporate sustainability considerations into their decision-making procedures, through the use of sustainability principles, criteria, indicators and processes. These principles and criteria can be applied at an overall corporate strategic level, for example in the service provider's mission statement, or at an application level, where these strategic principles are being applied to a particular decision.Sustainable Water Services is designed to inform and to provide support for strategic activity, both as a resource containing information about sustainability, and by employing feedback from application to inform the strategic processes of the water service provider.Presents an inclusive and generic set of sustainability criteria for use in water industry decision making processes;Discusses the legislative drivers for sustainable decision making for the UK water industry;Presents clear case study examples of the sustainability framework in action; Discusses the use and applicability of a wide range of tools and techniques for undertaking environmental, economic and social analyses, e.g. life cycle assessment, multi-criteria analysis. ... Read more

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This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format.Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship. ... Read more

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An excellent and well illustrated Refernce and Learning Encyclopedia Set full of exciting science history, developments, applications, technology, illustrated principles, humanity"s progress, exciting facts, scientific research, technologies, physical & natural science, physics, exploration, applications, atomic science, chemistry, environmental research, and etc.. ... Read more

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Over 40 spine-tingling ghost stories. ... Read more