Frank Carlson Library

The Taming of the Shrew (1592) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. Written between 1590 and 1592, The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's earliest works. Frequently critiqued by scholars for its demeaning portrayal of Katherina and for Petruchio's violence, the play has also been considered as an ironic treatment of the inequality experienced by women in marriage. The Taming of the Shrew has served as source material for countless film and...

This is one of Shakespeare's darkest comedies, for the romantic story of a young man, Bassanio, who has squandered his fortune and must borrow money to woo the wealthy lady he loves is set against the most disturbing story of the Jewish moneylender Shylock and his demand for the "pound of flesh" owed him by the Venetian merchant, Antonio, who has fallen into Shylock's debt. Here pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglement...

Romeo and Juliet was the first drama in English to confer full tragic dignity on the agonies of youthful love. The lyricism that enshrines their death-marked devotion has made the lovers legendary in every language that possesses a literature.

Exiled royals--including a duke's daughter, disguised as a man--and country folk, learn lessons about class and gender through a series of love triangles in the Forest of Arden.

Claudio and Hero, awaiting their wedding, conspire to get the antagonistic Beatrice and Benedick to fall in love, unaware that they themselves are the target of a more sinister plot. Includes explanatory notes, scene-by-scene plot summaries, a key to famous lines and phrases, and illustrations.

Poker buddies Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison suddenly find themselves bachelors again and innocently decide to share an apartment. In this classic comedy by America's most prolific and successful playwright, these two legendarily mismatched roommates bring down the house when they try to live together in one eight-room New York City apartment. An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Dan Castellaneta, Stanley DeSantis, Steven Hack, Jamie...

Originally published in 1859, "Adam Bede" is the first novel by George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was one of the leading British writers of the Victorian era, as well as a noted journalist, poet, and translator. "Adam Bede" concerns a small, tight-knit, and fictional rural community called Hayslope and the romantic drama that develops between four of its young residents: the title character Adam, a young carpenter, the...

Tolstoy's classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer.