One of the Bard's most popular plays, Romeo and Juliet is both the quintessential account of young love and the cautionary tale of the tragedy that can occur when the foces of passion and pride are at odds,

This revised Signet Classics edition includes unique features such as:

- An overview of Shakespeare's life, world, and theater
- A special introduction to the play by the editor, J. A. Bryant, Jr.
- The source from which Shakespeare derived Romeo and Juliet,...

Authors discussed include: Wendell Berry, Erskine Caldwell, Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Shelby Foote, Zora Neal Hurston, Bobbie Ann Mason, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, William Styron, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Wolfe, Richard Wright, and many more.

By World War II, the Southern Renaissance had established itself as one of the most significant literary events of the century, and today much of the best American fiction is southern fiction. Though the flowering of realistic and local-color writing...