Fair Em

Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works), 1564-16Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 73K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Fair Em by ShakespeareAuthor: Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works), 1564-1616,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

Fair Em is an early modern play classified among the Shakespeare apocrypha, with a plot centered on love, mistaken identity, and tests of loyalty. Its value lies not in settling Shakespearean authorship but in showing the narrative appeal and popular taste of the Elizabethan public stage: intertwined love plots, disguise, and coincidence, with a brisk pace and a clear flavor of romantic comedy. For scholars, it is a suitable sample for discussing the formation of the Shakespeare canon and attribution disputes; for general readers, it is more like a side door that reveals the lively plays of the period beyond the classics. The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English electronic text, not long, and suitable as supplementary reading in early modern drama. When reading, one need not insist on authorship; treating it first as an independent play makes it easier to appreciate its theatricality.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars studying the Shakespeare apocrypha and the formation of the canon
Students learning early modern English drama who need short texts
Theater enthusiasts curious about popular Elizabethan stage plays
Readers who want to approach British literary history through short plays

Not a good fit for

Readers who only want the accepted Shakespearean tragedies or comedies
Those expecting firm conclusions on authorship rather than the play text
Beginners unfamiliar with early modern English spelling and syntax

Reading tips

Read a plot summary first to clarify the relationships among characters, then go to the original text, so as not to be confused by the multiple plotlines.
Set the authorship question aside for the time being and read it as an independent comedy, focusing on the stage effects of disguise and mistaken identity.
Make brief notes on common spelling differences in early modern English to reduce reading resistance.
After finishing, read it alongside other apocryphal plays to form an overall understanding of the boundaries of the Shakespeare canon.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Was Fair Em written by Shakespeare?

It is classified among the Shakespeare apocrypha and doubtful works, and scholarly opinion on authorship is unsettled. The material itself labels it as a doubtful work, so it is better read as an early modern dramatic text rather than as a confirmed Shakespeare play.

Is this play suitable for beginning drama readers?

It can serve as supplementary reading, but it is not recommended as a first early modern play. It involves multiple love plots and mistaken identity, and the original is in early modern English. If you have already read one or two Shakespeare plays, it will be easier to get into.

What should I focus on while reading?

Three points are worth attention: how the themes of love and loyalty are advanced through disguise and misunderstanding; the staged handling of character relationships; and the theatrical taste of the period reflected in its status as an apocryphal work. The authorship question can be left for later.

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About the author

Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works), 1564-16 Author

Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works), 1564-16, is a designation for a special category of texts: plays traditionally attributed to Shakespeare but of doubtful or disputed authorship. Ten such works are held here, including King Edward III, A Yorkshire Tragedy, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Sir Thomas More, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, and The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell. Their subjects range from English chronicle history to family tragedy and citizen comedy; many were written with other dramatists of the period or revised by later hands. Their style has points of contact with the accepted Shakespeare canon while bearing clear marks of their age. Scholarship on these plays has long advanced the debate over the Shakespeare canon and the history of early modern English drama. Given the limited public record, the author's life and the exact attribution of these works cannot be set out in detail.