"The definitive biography of Sir Ian McKellen. In 2001, Ian McKellen put on the robe and pointed hat of a wizard named Gandalf and won a place in the hearts of Tolkien fans worldwide. Though his role in the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings introduced him to a new audience, McKellen had a thriving career a lifetime before his visit to Middle Earth. He made his West End acting debut in 1964 in James Saunders's A Scent of Flowers, but it was in 1980...

In Nevertheless, Baldwin transcends his public persona, shedding light on facets of his life he has long kept private. In this honest, affecting memoir, he introduces us to the Long Island child who felt burdened by his family's financial struggles and his parents' unhappy marriage; the Washington DC, college student gearing up for a career in politics; the self-named "Love Taxi" who helped friends solve their romantic problems while neglecting his...

"Generations of entertainers have amused audiences of children and adults with the art of hand shadows, using only a light source and their own two hands to form immediately recognizable profiles of people and animals. Lovers of nostalgia and aspiring hand shadow artists will delight in this facsimile of a 1913 book, which features more than 50 hand shadows. These quaint illustrations depict many different types of shadows, from swans, rabbits, and...

"For readers of Hidden Figures and Something Wonderful, Footnotes is the story of New York in the roaring twenties and the first Broadway show with an all-Black cast and creative team to achieve success-and its impact on our popular culture. Amidst a culture actively whitewashing, controlling, or trying to prevent their stories from being told, these artists changed the course of American entertainment. This groundbreaking group of performers and...

Includes: freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play; full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play; scene-by-scene plot summaries; a key to famous lines and phrases; an introduction to reading Shakespeare's language; an essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play; and illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books.

Aristophanes, the greatest of comic writers in Greek and in the opinion of many, in any language, is the only one of the Attic comedians any of whose works has survived in complete form He was born in Athens about the middle of the fifth century B C, and had his first comedy produced when he was so young that his name was withheld on account of his youth. He is credited with over forty plays, eleven of which survive, along with the names and fragments...

Acclaimed playwright and winner of the 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship considers his adolescence as a Syrian Jew in Brooklyn and the cultural figures-from Jean Paul Gaultier to Alfred Hitchcock to Friedrich Nietzsche-who impressed and influenced his development and his dreams. In a memoir that is as entertaining as it is poignant, David Adjmi chronicles his evolution from an impressionable kid growing up in Brooklyn after its heyday (and before its rebirth)...

Classic Books Library presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's play, "Henry VI, Part 1", featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare. In the first instalment of a trilogy set during the War of the Roses, Henry VI rises to King following the death of his father, Henry V. As England's military hold in France dwindles, rivalry runs high between the Houses of York and Somerset, leading to Lord Talbot's defeat...

Although one of his lesser known plays, Shakespeare's considerable abilities as a playwright are readily apparent in "Troilus and Cressida." This historical and tragic 'problem play', thought to be inspired by Chaucer, Homer, and some of Shakespeare's history-recording contemporaries, is initially a tale of a man and woman in love during the Trojan War. When Cressida is given to the Greeks in exchange for a prisoner of war, Troilus is determined to...

The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia where it won second place. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs. Unlike the author's other early plays, it includes no direct mention of the Peloponnesian War and there are few references to Athenian politics, and yet it was staged...