Other editions of book Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night, or What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola falls in love with Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with the Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello.

Written for ages seven to ten, The Shakespeare Collection is an irresistible retelling of Shakespeare's most popular plays in storybook form. Written by experienced children's authors, the stories have been reviewed by Kathy Elgin of the Royal Shakespeare Company and contain extracts from the original texts. Illustrated with full-color and black-and-white drawings throughout, these lively books make Shakespeare accessible to a young audience, sparking a lifelong interest in the Bard and his world.

Although this isn't necessarily the most well-known comedic play written by Shakespeare, nor the most powerful in its delivery, it is certainly among the most entertaining plays that the Bard managed to bring forth. With plenty of humor, intrigue, exciting scenes dominated by characters in disguise and complex love triangles that add a whole lot more fun and dimension to the characters' personalities, this entertaining piece of literary art has it all: excitement, funny comments and the most fulfilling, fast-paced action. As you read through it, you may find it is often difficult to even remember that Twelfth Night is a play written more than 400 years ago, yet Shakespeare's timeless skill takes the spotlight in placing his characters and bringing them to life as part of a story that is so realistic, you might as well see it played out on the paper it's written on. The plot of the story is perhaps among the most enticing elements of the play. With the twins Viola and Sebastian taking the center stage as the characters around which all the action revolves, the action truly takes off after the two are separated by a shipwreck, Sebastian believed to have died, while Viola is forced to disguise herself as a man. Viola's story is what most of the play is focused on. The young woman falls in love with Duke Orsino, while her male alter ego receives all the attention from Countess Olivia, who is revealed to have fallen in love with Cesario - the young man whose personality is so faithfully animated by Viola. Twelfth Night has become a classic not only because of its association with William Shakespeare, but mainly due to its intuitive, believable events and characters, the fun and intriguing plot and the characters, whose remarkable depth and complexity is shown throughout the play, entertaining and often shocking readers and spectators, even centuries after the play was performed for the first time.