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

[SignsAbove]

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.

I've seen these too. They really are lovely.

Maybe a Complete Works of Shakespeare (one book) rather than a whole set of books. There are some nice editions - I have the Jonathan Bate one, but there will be more up to date ones.
Maybe also a poetry anthology - have a look for one that covers a range of time periods.
Money / book tokens also a good idea - he'll be expected to do a lot of reading at uni.

To me, it depends what the gift is meant to be. If it's aa well done - then you could buy him a lovely Folio version of Wuthering Heights. I agree with @latetothefisting what might be more practical is to wait until he gets a reading list / set texts and buy some of those or cash towards it.

My DD (who did History but loves books/reading) collects copies of Little Women.

She has all sorts and loves them. I gave her a book embosser for Christmas.

My Ds has also abandoned his kindle for "real books"
He has a lovely book journal that he writes what he reads in it.
I'll see if I can find a link.

Or a lovely leather journal and a nice pen.

I did English Lit at university and I wouldn’t have wanted this. We had a set edition of the Collected Works that had to be bought. It could be worth finding out what the essentials reading list is before he starts. Eg, mine had Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Homer’s Odyssey and the Bible, among much else. As for Shakespeare, I did very little, because I didn’t do a specific module on Shakespeare. I did one on English revenge tragedy, and he cropped up there a bit.

Here are some lovely ones

https://www.papier.com/stationery/journals/reading-journals/?gad_campaignid=19694949014&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADjFAQl1yWWhemttYN6CC3ymptLcj&gclid=CjwKCAjwhZDUBhBGEiwAbi5bjrOFZVn0kSk_pTDEg7VmvNw0xAsWuyH9lKFMVYM2kgHlIA2Bx4RXuBoCVbkQAvD_BwE&utm_aid=146141913556&utm_cid=19694949014&utm_source=google

In my day, we were directed to the Arden Shakespeare (paperback) as the best scholarly editions. So he might want these for individual plays that he is studying. Might not know which plays at the outset. I’d echo the tickets for a live performance somewhere. I don’t think I’d ever seen a live professional production by the time I went off to read English- barely knew that yes, Shakespeare was funny!

I’m an English Lit student and definitely wouldn’t want this. My course specifies which editions we need - they’re not all the same publisher for Shakespeare either, this year I need Oxford for one play and Arden for another. Annoying really as my kids left behind numerous Shakespeare editions when they left home, but I’ve still had to get the required editions for my course. Also I could avoid Shakespeare entirely if I wanted to, and choose other options. I think theatre vouchers or book tokens would be better.

Shakespeare should be watched not read - get him an Rsc membership and prepay for tickets

English language and literature graduate here. I was so intrigued in my first year reading about the different versions of Shakespeare's text and the wonderful detail of how a misplaced punctuation mark or a badly transcribed word could change the meaning of a whole scene or an accepted interpretation of a character's character that I chose the bibliography option in my third year and spent hours in the library with facsimile editions of Shakespeare's plays. It became a guilty pleasure because the bibliography library was in a different building to the English library so I slunk there alone.

Anyway, @SignsAbove, here's another gift idea: reference books, specifically the most recent hardback editions of The Oxford English Dictionary, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and Roget's Thesaurus (Penguin). You say he likes paper! You could choose one, two, three or all four of these and he would have a mini reference library in his room. I bought mine with prizes from sixth form and used them intensively throughout the three years of my degree, checking and double-checking, filling in knowledge gaps, adding to my vocabulary. 44 years after graduating I have them still and my daughter used them to whilst studying A level English literature.

RSC or The Globe tickets- the Globe also does behind the scenes tours

The Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works of Shakespeare (one volume) has an essay about each play. I think a book token would be of more use.

How about purchasing a subscription to the National Theatre at Home. It’s not always easy to get tickets to plays, they’re expensive and often they are in London anyway.