New York, NY — January 23, 2026 — Carlini Classics, an imprint of Casa Carlini dedicated to presenting enduring literary works in refined contemporary editions, is proud to announce an ambitious new series of plays by William Shakespeare—presented in editions that strip away ornament and return the works to their elemental power. These books invite readers to encounter Shakespeare not as cultural inheritance, but as living drama: urgent, unsettling, and exacting.
Designed by Fiona Nguyen, a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, these editions bring renewed immediacy and emotional charge to the works of William Shakespeare, a writer whose tragedies, histories, and comedies continue to define how we think about power, intimacy, ambition, and moral consequence.
The initial release includes Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing. Additional titles will follow in time to mark Shakespeare’s 462nd birthday this April. Together, the series spans tragedy, political drama, psychological conflict, and romantic comedy, forming a coherent library that reflects the full range of Shakespeare’s imagination.
The covers are the series’s defining statement. Each play is reduced to a single object or motif, isolated against a saturated field of color. There are no scenes, no characters, no narrative cues. Instead, each image functions as a visual distillation—precise, symbolic, and deliberately spare.
A pale rose against crimson signals the fatal tenderness of Romeo and Juliet. A jeweled crown adrift in blue darkness captures the hollow authority of King Lear. A coiled serpent on burgundy evokes the quiet inevitability of betrayal in Julius Caesar. Macbeth is pared down to a candle dissolving into blackness, its flame flickering with ambition, its wax pooling into guilt.
Othello turns inward: folded lace on violet suggests intimacy corrupted by suspicion. Hamlet confronts the viewer with a skull in muted sepia, an image of thought stalled by conscience and mortality. A Midsummer Night’s Dream breaks the spell of tragedy with soft, overlapping flowers set against deep green—desire, transformation, and illusion held in unstable balance.
The comedies extend this symbolic logic. Twelfth Night gestures toward doubleness and disguise. Much Ado About Nothing balances wit with mistrust, levity with fracture. The Merchant of Venice introduces a darker moral register, its imagery hinting at contracts, mercy, and the cost of judgment. Across genres, the visual language remains disciplined and unified.
Typography reinforces this restraint. Tall serif lettering runs vertically along the left edge of each cover, giving the titles a sculptural presence. Shakespeare’s name anchors the base in a classic serif. Generous negative space gives each image weight, allowing it to function as an emblem rather than an illustration.
“Shakespeare endures because he works with elemental forces,” said Charles Carlini, founder of Casa Carlini. “Love, fear, ambition, jealousy, power. These covers are designed to reduce each play to its core without flattening its complexity.”
Inside, the editions are built for clarity and engagement. Clean typography, balanced layouts, and carefully considered contextual materials support the language without competing with it. The goal is not reinterpretation or modernization, but direct access, allowing readers to meet the plays without mediation.
What unites the series is its refusal to turn Shakespeare into spectacle. The design does not explain. It invites. Each cover offers a pause before the first line, a moment to consider the forces at work before the drama begins.
The Carlini Classics Shakespeare series presents these plays as what they remain: volatile, demanding, and profoundly human. These are not commemorative editions. They are working texts, meant to be read, argued with, and returned to.
The William Shakespeare editions from Carlini Classics are available now through Casa Carlini, major booksellers, and Amazon. Additional titles will be announced in the coming weeks.
About Carlini Classics
Carlini Classics, an imprint of Casa Carlini, publishes essential works of world literature in editions that balance scholarly fidelity with contemporary design. Through thoughtful curation and visual clarity, Carlini Classics brings timeless texts into renewed conversation with the present.
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