"The Sonnets" of William Shakespeare, a cycle of 154 linked poems, were first published or "entered" at Stationers' Hall by the publisher Thomas Thorpe on 20th May 1609. This 400th-anniversary edition contains all of the poems. They deal with many of Shakespeare's most common themes - jealousy, betrayal, melancholy - and are written in the same beautiful and innovative language that we have come to know from his plays. They ache with unfulfilled longing, and for many they are the most complete and moving meditations on love ever written.