《理查三世》是莎士比亞一部敘述英國那一段風雲變幻、多災多難歷史的劇作。故事描述駝背的理察三世，為了爭奪王位，不惜設計謀害手足兄弟﹑王位可能的繼承人，一路剷除異己，理查三世雙手沾滿鮮血，用盡心計手段，一步一個血印，爬上了寶座，建立起他那罪惡的王國。惡貫滿盈的他，最後戰死在沙場，才結束了歷時三十年的「玫瑰戰爭」。《理查三世》是莎士比亞成熟時期的劇作，對人性的陰暗面，有著精闢的刻劃，戲劇張力十分強烈。
This is the first edition of "Richard III" to be developed by and for the RSC, the world's leading Shakespeare theatre company and it includes unique material to help the reader understand and enjoy Shakespeare on the stage as well as on the page. It is illustrated with photographs of classic and unusual performances. It presents outstanding on-page notes which explain words and phrases unfamiliar to a modern audience, including the slang, political references and bawdy humour often ignored or censored in competing editions.It includes scene-by-scene summary, offering an easily understandable way into the play. It includes completely new introduction by Jonathan Bate, exploring the text and critical debates around it. It provides summary of the play's performance history at the RSC and elsewhere. It also includes interviews with important Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale, designer Tom Piper and directors Bill Alexander and Richard Eyre, discussing key productions of the play at the RSC.With interviews with actors and directors including Simon Russell Beale, Bill Alexander and Richard Eyre, along with detailed looks at productions at the RSC and elsewhere, this new edition of the play offers innovative ways of looking at and understanding Shakespeare, as well as student-friendly notes and scene-by-scene
About the Author
JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.
