Romeo and Juliet: Staged: the origins of YA’s greatest tropes

‘For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo’

A bloody feud. A tangled love. A senseless tragedy that brings two families to their knees.

After a chance meeting at a ball, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall desperately in love. But their families are locked in a bitter rivalry, their love forbidden. Worse still, Juliet’s family already expect her to marry her suitor, Count Paris.

Determined to save their love, Romeo and Juliet wed in secret. But when a fight erupts that leaves Montagues and Capulets dead, Romeo is banished from Verona, forcing Juliet to take desperate measures that spell tragedy for the star-crossed lovers.

Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s masterclass in tales of love and loss, and the origin of the lovestruck, star-crossed lovers.

Discover STAGED, a limited collection of Shakespeare’s unabridged plays that celebrates the genius of the Bard and the tropes that continue to delight YA readers to this day.

Explore the rest of the STAGED collection:
As You Like It – With a foreword by Talia Hibbert
Hamlet – With a foreword by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Macbeth – With a foreword by Kat Delacorte
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – With a foreword by Becky Albertalli
Much Ado About Nothing – With a foreword by Holly Bourne