Did you study English? Do you like Shakespeare? Gift ideas for University.

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My son has got a place to do English at University. We (DH and I, and grandparents on both sides) want to get him a gift to send him off with. A family friend suggested a set of second hand Shakespeare books. I have found various sets for about £100.

I’m a medical engineer so this is all very alien to me.

I’m a bit amazed that a set of books can be so much when you can just buy a set of new paperbacks on Amazon for a fraction of the price. I also thought Shakespeare was something you just endured at school 😁.

Would these even be of use to him? Are they likely to collect dust and be taken back to a charity shop in a few years? He does say he likes Shakespeare.

A nice idea but would he read them at uni ? Would they be too valuable to keep in his accommodation, maybe a gift for graduation?

what about theatre tickets , he could go and watch Shakespeare live in the city he is in ? Or any other literary based play he may be studying ?

tho cold hard cash is always appreciated

Literature graduate. You can’t be sure that Shakespeare will be offered as one of his electives although I’m pretty certain it will be. If he enjoys Shakespeare then he’s likely to choose to study the plays. That sounds a lovely gift.

I think you are right with the cash, that was where I started. But then my friend (who is more arty/bookish than I am) was horrified and said this would be nicer. And now I am torn!

Ahh! Thank you, this is helpful.

Do you think a new set of paperbacks would be better? There are so many of them, I can’t believe they are all good. He rolls his eyes at me though when I say things like that. If I didn’t know better I’d swear he wasn’t mine 😂.

I am collecting the cloth kind classics and buying them for a teen who loves books too. So far I have got wizard of oz and odyssey Romeo and Juliet. Get something one is meaningful they are £14-20. Then get a kindle paperwhite to help with reading. He can send it back if he doesn’t like it or would prefer the scribe. Or if he has an iPad an Apple Pencil.

other things are a book embosser or bookmark and a nice pen. And a book bag.

I would love the play but when I graduate or have my own place, not to schlep around uni.

I'm an English grad- I would be inclined to go for a new edition over a random second-hand one. You mention it as a set of books- that's going to take up a lot of space in a small student bedroom and older editions will probably be less useful in terms of commentary and editing. The Oxford Shakespeare is very good, and it's a useful work to have around even if he doesn't do a Shakespeare paper. Something where he can scribble in the margins is going to be a lot more useful than something he has to look after very carefully, and something up-to-date in terms of the text is going to be better than an old set where he'll have to keep checking the text. If you buy it as a hardback it'll last a lifetime. Then use the difference to give him some cash.

The thing is....
They are plays. Much better to watch them on stage than read in book form Which is why so many school children hate Shakespeare. It's reading scripts.
You'd be better off giving money/vouchers for any books he needs for the course and save a big gift like that for when he has graduated.

Book embosser (I mourn the MANY books I have lost over the years) and a kindle. While I love physical books, the speed at which I (and many English bods) read means space is at a premium.

Lit grad with a Shakespeare doctorate...

Just to say as an (old!) English graduate we absolutley did have the complete works of Shakespeare as a set text but we needed a specific edition which was specified as part of our reading list - so might be worth checking if that applies here

I wouldn't get a full set of paperbacks- he simply won't have space for them. If he ends up doing a lot of Shakespeare he can buy paperbacks of the plays he's looking at in detail if necessary to own alongside the complete works- they serve different purposes.

Or as pp suggests, a Kindle- that would be a great gift if he doesn't already have one. Or even better a Supernote, so he can read and make notes in the same place.

Thanks everyone. He has a kindle but rarely uses it as he says he prefers actual paper.

Good point about lugging them around during university years, I am rethinking now.

Googling embossers now!

I read English at university and chose the Shakespeare in Performance paper, we also studied Shakespeare when we did Elizabethan literature plus we did two plays in depth. And I did my dissertation on Shakespeare. So you could say I like Shakespeare! I had an ancient Complete Works ( all the plays in one book) and it certainly got a lot of use. I would have liked the set of books to a certain extent but I would not have liked dragging them backwards and forwards to university three times a year and then finding them bookshelf space in the four flat shares I lived in after uni.

But would add that a beautiful edition of a favourite book is a lovely present (then and now) and actual paper books are having a bit of a moment again now I think (at least amongst my 20-somethings and their friends). I really like folio society editions - new these are around £70 but you can often get second hand ones for around £20 depending on the title. (Second hand folio society Shakespeares are often around £15 each but I wouldn’t actually recommend these - they don’t have the footnotes and annotations that are useful to a student)

Paperbacks will be fine. Easier to handle. Great tomes are really only useful for display purposes. Hope your son loves every minute x

Do not buy 30-odd paperbacks for someone who might not even be studying Shakespeare!

This is all very helpful.

Who knew there were differences, and that notes and things matter. Well clearly you clever lot do, and I appreciate the advice.

I’m now puzzled as to how there can be different versions of a single book that a person wrote. It’s not like my science books where new knowledge comes about. I shall ask him in 3 years time when he will know this 😆

Does he have a favourite book? A lovely edition of that maybe.

I love a novelty sock (so much so that I get given them by students every year) and have many literary pairs.

There maybe a forward, preface, footnote, authors note etc in different versions. The core text will be the same (Shakespeare can be a bit wild though) but it quite important to the correct page reference when read as a set text ( years of being an accidental English teacher with not quite a full set of the class texts)

Surely you know that Shakespeare's language is different to modern language and different editions of the books might have changed a few words over the years.
Different editions also have different notes and explanations.

His favourite book is Wuthering Heights (at the moment). I think because it was one of his teacher’s favourites, and he thought that teacher walked on water. They very much encouraged his love of reading in a way which I was wholly unequipped to do!

Fancy books really are a thing for book lovers. I have the Folio Society Shakespeare set and they are just beautiful.

I know language is different, but I would have guessed that the words would be faithfully reproduced. I know better now!

Very little is usually changed but sometimes the odd word.