Kolkata’s printing houses have brought Shakespeare to Bengali readers in a variety of formats, adapting Shakespeare’s plays into versions catered to children and adults.
Color covers
Cleopatra in a cover illustration for a collection of Shakespeare’s tragedies translated into Bengali as short stories for young adults, with sketches and illustrations. The title transliterates the English words ‘Tragedy [sic] of Shakespeare’.
A revisioning of the cauldron scene from Macbeth: cover illustration by Ranjan Datta for a collection of Shakespeare’s plays translated into Bengali as short stories for young adults, with sketches and illustrations. The title transliterates the English words ‘Dramas of Shakespeare’.
Cleopatra and a dueling Hamlet and Laertes in two presumably separate scenes: cover illustration for a book of abridged Bengali prose retellings of Shakespeare’s works, with sketches and illustrations, for young readers.
Bengali Translations
Hamlet, translated by Manomohana Rāya
The Merchant of Venice, translated by Manomohana Rāya
Cymbeline, translated by Satyendranātha Ṭhākura
Black and White Illustrations
Opening illustration for Venus and Adonis from Shakespeare rachana samagra (Shakespeare’s Collected Works, 1994), a collection of Bengali prose retellings of Shakespeare by Subodh Chakrabarti.
Hamlet and Gertrude, with the dead Polonius. Illustration from Manomohan Raya’s Bengali translation of Hamleṭ, denmarker yubaraj (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark).
Ophelia. Illustration from Manomohan Raya’s Bengali translation of Hamleṭ, denmarker yubaraj (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark).
