The results are in, and here are the ten bestselling Shakespeare plays in the London Review Bookshop so far this year (Arden Edition league).
In joint fifth place: Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Jostling for position in the crowded joint fourth place: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry VI Part II, Richard II.
In third place, unchanged from its 2012 chart position: Macbeth.
Climbing from fifth place last year, into a well-deserved second place: Julius Caesar.
And finally, rising out of nowhere to claim this year’s top spot: Othello.
Congratulations to all, and we hope you can join us next year for more exciting Shakespearean chart news. Will Othello go the way of King Lear (chart-topper in 2012), or will the Moor be able to defend his title? Can Hamlet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both undoubtedly strong contenders, rise from the mid-table doldrums? We leave you with this thought from Iago: ‘Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving’.
