Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold

📒 James Anthony has done something I would have confidently stated to be impossible. He has "translated" Shakespeare's sonnets and he has done so with an insolent, loveable charm ... A dazzling success' - Stephen Fry.

Rediscover the greatest love poetry ever written.

Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
You're more delightful, always shining strong;
High winds blow hard on flowering buds in May,
And summer never seems to last that long...

Shakespeare's sonnets are some of the nation's favourite lines of verse, but the Elizabethan language can make it difficult to really understand them. Many guides offer to clarify the meaning, but lose the magic of the words by explaining them away.

James Anthony has done something boldly different.

He has rewritten the whole series of poems as sonnets using modern language, while retaining the rhythm and rhyme patterns that gives them such power. In doing so he breathes new life into the original poems and opens them up f...