Elizabethan Drama I

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.

Volume XLVI features four of the masterpiece tragedies by the greatest playwright in the English language-WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)'s Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest, all written between 1599 and 1611. Also included in this volume is Edward the Second, a 1592 drama of court intrigue, by CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593), who greatly influenced Shakespeare's writing and who-some speculate-may actually have penned the plays credited to Shakespeare after faking his own death and taking on an assumed name.