UK independent publisher SelfMadeHero will launch its line of contemporary manga next month with manga adaptations of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, using the Bard's original language in abridged versions of his classic plays.  Amulet Books, an imprint of art book publisher Harry N. Abrams, will publish the Manga Shakespeare titles in the U.S. in April.

Emma Hayley, the director of SelfMadeHero who previously worked as editorial manager for publishers Hobsons and Arcturus, chose UK artists Sonia Leong and Emma Vieceli to illustrate the first two books in the Manga Shakespeare line.  Future titles in the Manga Shakespeare series include The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Richard Appignanesi edits the series with Nick de Somogyi acting as  the textual consultant.

Manga Shakespeare is not Self Made Hero's only initiative -- a second line of books, Classical Eye, will launch later in the year and will include graphic novel adaptations of Kafka's The Trial, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.