Plain Text Shakespeare from Classical Comics

Making classical literature appealing to all starts with younger readers and in education. To include readers of varying abilities we offer three text versions of each of our Shakespeare titles. These are Original, Plain and Quick.

Three panels from three versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream graphic novels showing the difference in dialogue.

Looking particularly at Plain Text (the middle book in the above image), you can see these are simply Shakespreare's play translated into plain English - the entire play.

Our research revealed how the sometimes complex language of Shakespeare can deter many readers, especially those coming to a play for the first time. So we published our Plain Text version: a translation of the entire script in plain modern English.

The Plain Text graphic novel can be used alongside the Original Text version or on its own. Students may want to use Plain Text alongside the play script they are given to help with understanding in the classroom.

Plain Text contains a very similar word count to the Original Text Shakespeare. For example, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Plain Text has 14,783 words, while Original Text has 14,871 words.

Our Plain Text Shakespeare titles are all full-colour graphic novels so you can easily “watch” the play unfold as you read it. Shakespeare's plays were written to be performed and reading the graphic novel can be similar to watching a performance of the play. Our vibrant and exciting artwork ensures that students are further able to engage with the story.

The text in speech balloons is in upper case across all our titles which is typical of most comic book lettering. Aesthetically this allows lines of type to sit closer together in the speech balloons.

A bookshelf of Classical Comics Plain Text graphic novels showing their purple spines.

To make classical literature appealing to all, we also produce Original Text and Quick Text. Either of these graphic novels may be your preferred option over Plain Text.

“Original Text” is the entire unabridged play.
“Quick Text” is a much reduced dialogue version of the play to allow you an even quicker introduction to the story.

All three text versions allow a single class of mixed abilities to work with the same story. Able readers can jump straight in with either the Plain Text or Original Text versions while lesser able readers can use the Quick Text version, giving you a classroom of pupils, of whatever ability, effectively reading from the 'same' page.

For those wanting to understand the story quickly we’d suggest starting with Plain Text before moving to Original Text. Look for the purple circle on our books.

Five Plain Text graphic novels in a pile each with an purple circle. Wording reads: The entire play translated into plain English.