Richard III: No Fear Shakespeare Side-by-Side Plain English (Volume 15)

Low price, quick ship, good product.

This is highly, highly recommended for those new to Shakespeare. You get the text of the play and then, line by line on the facing page, there is a modern-day language translation. How does this help newbies? It allows you to immediately grasp what Shakespeare was saying to allow you to actually *think* about the play and even, dare I say, enjoy it. Because the "translations" are line for line on the facing page, it's easy to read the original, glance over at the modern day translation if you need to for clarification, then read the original again to find nuance.All of this ease of reading frees you up to formulate your own thoughts and ideas about the play. So if you're expected to write critical thinking essays and papers about the play, this book makes it much easier to do that. All in all, it will save you an enormous amount time and energy.Note: this is not one of those "cheat" books! It's not going to spoon-feed you ideas about themes, symbols, etc. But it makes it easier for you to come up with all that stuff for yourself. There are books available that talk about characterizations, themes, motifs, etc, but if you need a little help in that department, there's always Google. For what it's worth, if you read the play using this book, I'm willing to bet you won't even need help with all that other stuff....you'll find it in the text itself since you can actually understand what Shakespeare was saying using this translation.

This makes reading Shakespeare make sense. I struggled in high school English with Shakespeare. If you are a student or just remember being tortured in school trying to stay awake reading Shakespeare's plays and are curious about why the plays are so popular, pick up this book. It makes a huge difference!

This as nice a No Fear Shakespeare book as you can expect like the others but the reason why I couldn’t give it five stars like everybody else is because in the beginning pages where all the characters in the play are introduced there’s an incorrect typo that calls Edward V and Richard Duke of York Richard’s cousins when their definitely his nephews and children of his older brother Edward IV. I had to personally mark that out and write nephews instead because that’s how much it annoyed me. I’m not sure if that’s something everyone was just able to ignore or they just didn’t get that kind of typo in their copies of the play, but yes that’s the reason for my star rating, it kind of diminished my trust in the printing of information in one of these.

Original version on one page, and a modern "translation" on the facing page. I read the original until I get stuck or confused, then I look across to the facing page which has the dialog in modern English. It's a great system!

The "No Fear Shakespeare" books are a great way to get your kids reading these treasures. I tried the first one when my son asked why it was okay to read translations of great Greek literary works but Shakespeare, which seemed like Greek to him, had to be read in its original form. The nice thing about these books is that they give the original language side-by-side with the modern translation so you get to experience the beauty of the original while having a "translator" readily available when you need it to enhance understanding. All 4 of my children started reading Shakespeare in sixth grade with these books and read 3-5 of them a year. They start out relying heavily on the modern language but eventually abandon it almost entirely. Don't be afraid to try one.

I'm an English PhD student, and even I have trouble with Shakespeare. His language is beautifully complex, and it can take me a long time to unpack what his characters are trying to say. I've cross-referenced "No Fear" on the SparkNotes website before for other Shakespeare plays, but it's been nice to have a hard copy in hand. I go from the original text on the left and then onto the "modern" text on the right as needed. In this way I'm able to understand Shakespeare without missing out on the richness of his language.There are other publishers that make Shakespeare easier to read, providing original text against a more modern rendering. While those do a fair job, no one comes close (in my opinion) to capturing the ease and user-friendliness of SparkNotes.

It is useful to have understandable English available when reading Shakespeare. There are a lot of characters in the play, and being bogged down with "old" English can be a challenge. More readable this way.

Très bon livre. Très beau.

Speedy service. As described. Great seller.

14 yo Daughter needed this for school. She found it excellent - having the translation on the facing page made it easy to catch on to Shakespeare's style and old English and she found by about half way she did not need to check very often. She "got the hang" of Shakespeare - and now wants to read more!!! She is speaking in Ye Olde Englishe around the house now...

Ich mag Shakespeare, aber er ist zT auch etwas müham zu lesen. Die NO FEAR Bücher bieten jeweils auf der linken Seite die Originalfassung und auf der rechten Seite eine "Übersetzung" in heutiges modern English. Damit kann man einfach zwischen den Versionen switchen oder mal nachlesen, was mit dem einen oder anderen originalen Text gemeint ist. Shakespeare mal anders - klasse!

Very nice book.Sparknotes are the best