Macbeth

Three witches visit the Scottish general Macbeth with a prophecy: he will one day become King of Scotland. Blinded by ambition and goaded into action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and assumes the throne. Forced to commit more murders to protect himself from suspicion, he gradually becomes a tyrannical ruler, slipping into madness as his paranoia grows and his kingdom crumbles around him. Written over 400 years ago, Macbeth has remained a perennially popular play, with its universal themes of the dangers of political ambition, power for power's sake, and the psychological effects of guilt relevant and relatable to this day. This Wordsworth Classics edition is edited, annotated and introduced by Cedric Watts, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex.