Touch Press and Faber have followed up their app of Eliot's The Waste Land with another offering form iPad users featuring the sonnets of William Shakespeare.
The app features the full text of all 154 sonnets with the complete Arden notes integrated into them, plus filmed readings of every sonnet by a cast including actors Sir Patrick Stewart, Kim Cattrall, David Tennant, Simon Russell Beale, Dominic West, Siân Phillips, Fiona Shaw, Dame Harriet Walter, Simon Callow and Stephen Fry and poets Don Paterson and Sir Andrew Motion.
Also included is a facsimilie of the 1609 quarto edition of the Sonnets and interviews with Shakespeare scholars including Katherine Duncan-Jones, James Shapiro and Henry Woudhuysen. There are also facilities for readers to make their own notes and to share sonnets via e-mail and social networking sites.
Arden Shakespeare publisher for Bloomsbury Margaret Bartley said, "This stunning app offers readers a dynamic and innovative way to engage with Shakespeare's sonnets.
"We are used to encountering his plays in performance, now readers can enjoy and explore the sonnets in performance alongside the authoritative Arden text and its expert commentary."
The app is now available from the iTunes Store priced at £9.99, or US$13.99. More information and all 154 videos can be found at www.thesonnets.tv.