As You Like It: Staged: the origins of YA’s greatest tropes

William Shakespeare

Mar 2024 · Random House

About this ebook

With a foreword by Talia Hibbert, author of Get a Life, Chloe Brown

‘We that are true lovers run into strange capers’

Banished from her ambitious uncle’s court, the lovesick Rosalind flees to the forest with her cousin, Celia. Disguised as the handsome shepherd Ganymede and simple shepherdess Aliena, the two soon meet the dashing Orlando – forced into hiding by a plot against his life, heartbroken at the separation from his beloved Rosalind.

Fooled by Rosalind’s disguise, Orlando grows close to ‘Ganymede’. But Phoebe, a local shepherdess, also has her eye on Ganymede. As their hopes and dreams entangle, can everyone get what they want?

As You Like It is Shakespeare’s brilliant gender swapping, fake dating classic comedy of errors.

Discover STAGED, a limited collection of Shakespeare’s unabridged plays that celebrates the genius of the Bard and the tropes that continue to delight YA readers to this day.

Explore the rest of the STAGED collection:
Hamlet – With a foreword by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Macbeth – With a foreword by Kat Delacorte
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – With a foreword by Becky Albertalli
Much Ado About Nothing – With a foreword by Holly Bourne
Romeo and Juliet – With a foreword by Jennifer Niven

About the author

William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. He wrote about 38 plays (the precise number is uncertain), many of which are regarded as the most exceptional works of drama ever produced, including Romeo and Juliet (1595), Henry V (1599), Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), King Lear (1606) and Macbeth (1606), as well as a collection of 154 sonnets, which number among the most profound and influential love poetry in English. Shakespeare died in Stratford in 1616.