A Lover's Complaint

A young woman, weeping by a river. An old shepherd who finds her. And a story of seduction, betrayal, and the terrible cost of giving your heart to the wrong man.

Shakespeare's most neglected poem is a haunting meditation on desire and regret, a companion piece to the Sonnets, bound with them in their first edition, but rarely read alongside them.

A young woman, beautiful and tear-stained, sits alone by a riverbank, tearing up letters and throwing them into the water. An old shepherd approaches and asks why she grieves. She tells him: she fell in love with a man who was charming, persuasive, and utterly false. He wooed her with promises and tears. He swore he had never loved before. She gave herself to him. He left her. Now she sits alone, still loving him, still unable to hate him, and knowing that she is not the first woman he has destroyed—nor will she be the last.

This is Shakespeare at his most Ovidian and melancholy: a poem about the gap between words and feelings, about the seductiveness of a beautiful liar, and about the strange, stubborn persistence of love even after it has been betrayed. A Lover's Complaint has been called minor Shakespeare, but its darkness and its compassion are unmistakably his.

• First published in 1609 as an appendix to the Sonnets

• Written in the same rhyme scheme (rime royal) as The Rape of Lucrece

• Its authorship was once disputed, but most scholars now accept it as Shakespeare's

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the hardest love to leave is the one that hurt you most.

About the Author

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he moved to London and became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men). A Lover's Complaint was first published in 1609 as part of Thomas Thorpe's edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The poem's authorship was questioned for centuries, partly because it was not included in the 1640 edition of the Sonnets and partly because its style seemed less distinctive than Shakespeare's other works. However, modern scholarship, including computer-assisted stylistic analysis—has largely confirmed Shakespeare's hand. The poem is written in the seven-line stanza known as "rime royal," which Shakespeare also used in The Rape of Lucrece. It remains the least-read of Shakespeare's major poems, but it has found passionate defenders, including the poet John Keats, who admired its intensity. Shakespeare's other major works include Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, and the Sonnets. He died in 1616 at the age of 52 and is buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.