These exquisite and collectible editions are published as a part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series. Designed by the multi-award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, the series features editions that are bound in high-quality, colorful, and tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. By the time this collection of Shakespeare’s poems was published for the first time in 1609, the famous author had already penned the majority of the plays that brought him his fame. The 154 sonnets, of which all but two are addressed to a handsome young man or a treacherous “dark lady,” contain some of the most exquisite and eerie poetry that has ever been written. The sonnets deal with timeless topics such as love and betrayal, memory and mortality, and the devastation caused by time. A Lover’s Complaint, which was originally published alongside the sonnets, is also included in this collection. In it, a young woman is overheard bemoaning the betrayal she suffered at the hands of a heartless seducer.
