Timon of Athens

Synopsis

Timon of athens has struck many readers as rough and unpolished, perhaps even unfinished, though to others it has appeared as shakespeare's most profound tragic allegory. Described by coleridge as 'the stillborn twin of king lear', the play has nevertheless proved brilliantly effective in performance over the past thirty or forty years. This edition accepts and contributes to the growing scholarly consensus that the play is not shakespeare's solo work, but is the result of his collaboration with thomas middleton, who wrote about a third of it.