The Shakespeare 400 Collection contains recordings of twenty sonnets read by ten major poets. Each poet has chosen a favourite sonnet by Shakespeare and, inspired by that sonnet, has written a new sonnet of their own.

Celebrating the work of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death, the British Council supported The Poetry Archive to enable us to record and present the Shakespeare 400 Collection as part of the Shakespeare Lives in 2016 programme.

These sonnets are included in the Bloomsbury anthology, ‘On Shakespeare’s Sonnets – A Poets’ Celebration’, published in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and Kings College London. The book contains 30 Shakespeare sonnets and new sonnets by thirty poets.