David Timson

Here are the stories of ten key Shakespeare plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, King Lear, Richard III, Othello, Macbeth, The Tempest, Henry V, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. David Timson presents the complex plots in a clear, entertaining and informal style, introducing the main characters in the context of the famous lines. This account not only entertains but also acts as an ideal 'starter pack' for children going to see the plays of...

David Timson introduces London Labour and the London Poor and its author Henry Mayhew, who in 1841 founded the satirical magazine Punch before his social conscience moved him to expose in his remarkable book the terrible poverty in London — then the richest city in the world.

Western theatre from ancient Greece to the present day. Tracing the development of dramatic art through the miracle plays, the great Shakespearean period, Moliere and Racine in France, Goethe in Germany, through the 19th century and the main movements in the 20th century.

Naxos AudioBooks presents the history of the Plantaganets as seen through the eyes of Shakespeare. These easy-to-understand introductions feature key speeches and scenes from the plays themselves, and are very accessible for children approaching Shakespeare for the first time, as well as being an invaluable aid to the history of the Plantaganets, from Richard II to Richard III. This set covers: Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI...

Two leading English classical actors, Juliet Stevenson and Simon Russell Beale, open the doors to eight important plays, including Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure, and All's Well That Ends Well. These newly written introductions by David Timson have proved eminently useful for young audiences coming to Shakespeare for the first time.

"When it comes to walking the mean streets, Dickens could give modern genre authors the tour of their lives." -Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times When a corpse is found in the Thames River and identified as John Harmon, many lives will be forever changed. John, who had been abroad and estranged from his miserly father for years, will no longer collect his inheritance. It will instead go to the miser's employees, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, transforming...

"Written between 1873 and 1884 but not published until 1903, a year after Butler's death, his marvelously uninhibited satire savages Victorian bourgeois values as personified by multiple generations of the Pontifex family. A thinly veiled account of his own upbringing in the bosom of a God-fearing Christian family, Butler's scathingly funny depiction of the self-righteous hypocrisy underlying nineteenth-century domestic life was hailed by George Bernard...

"The Christmas Stories by Charles Dickens: Illustrated" is a festive treasury that gathers together some of the most beloved holiday tales penned by the celebrated author, Charles Dickens. This enchanting collection includes timeless classics such as "A Christmas Carol," "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," "A Christmas Tree," and several others. Charles Dickens, known for his masterful storytelling, invites readers into...

Eager to learn the rules of magic, Lucius agrees to participate in a shapeshifting spell that suddenly goes awry, transforming the man into a donkey. His life is abruptly upended as he is attacked, stolen and sold multiple times before finding relief through divine intervention. Lucius is enamored with witchcraft and begs a woman to transform him into a bird. Unfortunately, she fails, and he is immediately turned into an ass. This leads to a tumultuous...

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. In the Histories, Tacitus brings to life the events of one of the most tumultuous periods of the Roman empire. After the suicide of the Emperor Nero in AD69, Rome entered into a period of extreme civil unrest. Four emperors, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian, successively ruled the empire as each one rose...