Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. Set mainly in Scotland, the play dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. The play is believed to have been written between 1599 and 1606. The earliest account of a performance of what was probably Shakespeare's play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing such a play at the Globe Theatre. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book. It was most likely written during the reign of James I, who had been James VI of Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. James was a patron of Shakespeare's acting company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote during James's reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with the sovereign.

This is not your parents’ Macbeth or the one you read in high-school English class. A dark and bloody tale of a Scottish lord and his beloved wife trying to save their eleventh-century kingdom from its corrupt king, Macbeth: A Novel hurtles toward listeners in gripping contemporary prose, thanks to novelists David Hewson and A. J. Hartley. With the verve of today’s fast-paced thrillers, Hewson and Hartley create an electrifying tapestry out of Shakespeare’s tale, relaunching two of literature’s most powerful characters.Macbeth, a loyal servant to the Scottish crown, has shed blood time and again for his homeland. And yet the country is crumbling around him, torn apart by warring clans and foreign marauders and ruled by a corrupt, self-serving king. Desperate to preserve the kingdom, Macbeth and his wife, Skena, craft an ambitious plan to keep Scotland whole, never intending the tragic spiral of murder, treachery, and personal collapse that ensues.

In this story based on the Shakespeare play, 'Macbeth,' and set in eleventh-century Scotland, Lady Mary, the fourteen-year-old ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, is sent to live with Lady Macbeth to learn the ways of nobility, but after Mary's father is hanged as a traitor, her fate is in the hands of her ruthlessly ambitious guardians.In this story based on the Shakespeare play, 'Macbeth,' and set in eleventh-century Scotland, Lady Mary, the fourteen-year-old ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, is sent to live with Lady Macbeth to learn the ways of nobility, but after Mary's father is hanged as a traitor, her fate is in the hands of her ruthlessly ambitious guardians.