Penguin Classics: Measure for Measure

Redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will'

A young man is condemned to death for breaking a law forbidding sex outside marriage. When his sister pleads with the Lord Angelo to save him, he offers her a bargain - her brother's life in exchange for her virginity. One of Shakespeare's most enigmatic plays, Measure for Measure is a morally complex drama of intricate moves and countermoves that explores falsehood, justice and humanity's best and basest instincts.

'Language is his power. His characters are precisely the words they speak.' A. S. Byatt

General Introduction by Stanley Wells
Edited by J. M. Nosworthy
Introduction by Julia Briggs