Written as a novel, the whole play is penned with character insights into what each person is thinking before and after they speak. All of the original text is included but updated for a modern understanding.

Rather than place the play in its original setting this novel is set in a time unknown and written after the Gender Wars and probably after Religious Consolidation in a steampunk era without electricity. Interspersed with the chapters, that follow exactly the acts and scenes of the original play, are chapters of “This is me in my classroom.” These are intended as breaks in the Shakespearean play and not as preachy text or exercises to be carried out by the reader.

Grimwald is a one hundred ten years old teacher in the early three thousands. His left eye is failing but his right eye has been operated on, courtesy of The Authority, and now focuses by means of tiny cogs in his cheekbone powered by a steampack that is recharged weekly.

Whether you read this novel for study or merely for enjoyment then the ideal would be that you complete it with an overwhelming desire to then read the original play in its original language.

Book review

When Romeo and Juliet – The Novel arrived in the post I was a bit daunted to see how thick it was. I needn’t have been worried as Stephenson Holt has published it with larger than normal print so that it’s easier on the eye in paperback form.

The ‘Steampunk’ element is there and makes the story more interesting but it’s not overdone to the point where it detracts from the original. As it says on the back cover the original dialogue is all in the novel but updated to be understandable to the modern ear.

It wasn’t until I read this book that I realised how much is intentionally left out of film and play versions, I guess to make it more manageable. The class that are studying the book, who live in the future, are told that the seemingly irrelevant parts are to allow for costume changes.

To sum up; I studied this book in school many years ago and have since seen it in film version and as an audience participation play but it was on this reading that I began to understand some of the obscure references and innuendo.