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Cover of A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

  • Free to read
  • 1 hour to read
  • Reading level: 6th grade

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare is a comedy play written in about 1595 or 1596. Set in ancient Athens, the story weaves together three interlocking plots: feuding lovers fleeing into an enchanted forest, amateur actors rehearsing a wedding performance, and fairy royalty engaged in their own magical quarrels. When Oberon and Titania's conflict spills into the mortal world, a mischievous sprite named Puck uses love potions with chaotic consequences, transforming a moonlit night into a whirlwind of mistaken identities and romantic confusion.

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  • Comedy plays
  • Courtship
  • Athens (Greece)
  • Fairy plays

Read the opening

Executive Director's Notes:

In addition to the notes below, and so you will *NOT* think all the spelling errors introduced by the printers of the time have been corrected, here are the first few lines of Hamlet, as they are presented herein:

Barnardo. Who's there?
Fran. Nay answer me: Stand & vnfold
your selfe

Bar. Long liue the King

As I understand it, the printers often ran out of certain words or letters they had often packed into a "cliche". . .this is the original meaning of the term cliche. . .and thus, being unwilling to unpack the cliches, and thus you will see some substitutions that look very odd. . .such as the exchanges of u for v, v for u, above. . .and you may wonder why they did it this way, presuming Shakespeare did not actually write the play in this manner. . . .

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About this edition

This free edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #2242, released 2000-07-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Plays/Films/Dramas, Classics of Literature, British Literature.

Other editions: eBook #1514 (most read), eBook #1113, eBook #1778.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

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