The Norton Shakespeare: Essential Plays / The Sonnets offers the twenty most-assigned plays and all the sonnets in a compact, portable, and value-priced paperback with a host of features.

Organized by genre, this volume includes the genre introductions enthusiastically received in The Norton Shakespeare, Second Edition: “Shakespearean Tragedy” by Stephen Greenblatt, “Shakespearean Comedy” by Katharine Eisaman Maus, “Shakespearean History” by Jean E. Howard, and “Shakespearean Romance” by Walter Cohen. Like its parent volume, this concise edition gives students the vibrant introductions, readable single-column format, helpful glosses and notes, and extensive reference materials―maps, a timeline, annotated bibliographies and film lists, documents―that have made The Norton Shakespeare, Second Edition the best-selling classroom edition worldwide.