Four lovers flee into a wood outside Athens and into the middle of a quarrel between the fairy king and queen; a troupe of amateur actors rehearses nearby; Puck is dispatched with a love potion and poor aim. Everything tangles, everything resolves, and the amateurs’ play-within-a-play is the funniest scene Shakespeare wrote.
It is the most staged, most adapted, most beloved of the comedies for good reason: moonlit, musical, and structurally flawless. If you are introducing anyone to Shakespeare — including yourself — start here.
Which edition?
1Arden Shakespeare, Third Series
Ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri · Bloomsbury, 2017
The newest full edition — global in reach, generous on the play’s afterlives.
2Oxford World’s Classics
Ed. Peter Holland · Oxford University Press, 1994
Holland on dreams, doubling, and the mechanicals — the most purely enjoyable introduction.
3The New Cambridge Shakespeare
Ed. R. A. Foakes · Cambridge University Press
Compact, reliable, and alert to the play’s darker corners.
4Folger Shakespeare LibraryFirst read? Start here
Ed. Barbara Mowat & Paul Werstine · Simon & Schuster
The best first Shakespeare there is, in the friendliest format.
Midsummer Night's Dream on screen
1A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Film · dir. Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle
2A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)
Film · dir. Michael Hoffman
Reading Midsummer Night's Dream this year?
Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.