The Sonnets and a Lover’s Complaint (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

When this volume of Shakespeare’s poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous.

Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.

When this volume of Shakespeare’s poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets – all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous ‘dark lady’ – contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is A Lover’s Complaint, originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.

About the Author

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright of the 16th and 17 centuries, now widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the word’s pre-eminent dramatist.