# Book Titles from Shakespeare: Consecutive Lines Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 23, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881 "2016-02-23T15:42:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/1 "2016-02-23T15:42:52Z")
Let’s play a game, because I don’t know how else to find out: what is the longest stretch of Shakespearian dialogue that is also book titles? Here’s what I mean, and also the longest stretch I knew off hand: By the pricking of my thumbs (Agatha Christie) Something wicked this way comes. (Ray Bradbury) Which is, perhaps obviously, from Macbeth. Bonus points for whole lines, but I am okay with bits… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/2 "2016-02-23T16:06:02Z")
**National Lampoon** did a piece like this many years ago, only with fictional book title, generated from the _To be, or not to be…_ soliloquoy from _Hamlet_. They made up a plausible book description for a title generated by each line. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/3 "2016-02-23T21:12:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **National Lampoon** did a piece like this many years ago, only with fictional book title, generated from the _To be, or not to be…_ soliloquoy from _Hamlet_. They made up a plausible book description for a title generated by each line. I remember **National Lampoon** featuring a “Best-Sellers List” in which the sequence of titles corresponded to the text of Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”. For example, _The Center Cannot Hold_ was about a football offensive lineman unable to block illegally. Of course, the idea could have been recycled by the magazine. [Here](http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-inspired-novel-titles/) is a list of novel titles taken from Shakespeare, although not all are direct quotes from the plays. The OP’s example is included. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/4 "2016-02-24T01:04:03Z")
Ooooh, the irony, it burns! Isaac Asimov’s “The Gods Themselves” is variously pegged _on that very page_ as coming from Hamlet, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. The actual quote - set out in black and white in the book itself? “Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain” - Friedrich Schiller ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/5 "2016-02-24T02:08:31Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > By the pricking of my thumbs (Agatha Christie) > Something wicked this way comes. (Ray Bradbury) > > Which is, perhaps obviously, from Macbeth. > > Bonus points for whole lines, but I am okay with bits… According to the page **Sternvogel** linked to, there’s a book titled _The Way to Dusty Death._ “Out out” is at least [a poem](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238122), so that’s another example of two consecutive titles, also from _Macbeth_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/6 "2016-02-24T12:28:51Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > I remember **National Lampoon** featuring a “Best-Sellers List” in which the sequence of titles corresponded to the text of Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”. For example, _The Center Cannot Hold_ was about a football offensive lineman unable to block illegally. Of course, the idea could have been recycled by the magazine. > > [Here](http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-inspired-novel-titles/) is a list of novel titles taken from Shakespeare, although not all are direct quotes from the plays. The OP’s example is included. OK, now you’ve got me thinking that I’ve conflated NatLamp riffing on the Yeats poem with an example of humor performed on Hamlet’s solilquoy elsewhere (there are plenty of examples). My apologies if my memory played me false. I’ve looked for this example online in the past, and couldn’t find it. Maybe because I was looking for Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/book-titles-from-shakespeare-consecutive-lines-edition/746881/7 "2016-02-24T23:12:20Z")
Alister McLean had “Way to a Dusty Death” Frost had (as a poem, of course) “Sound and the Fury.” Kurt Vonnegut had “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” as a short story. “The Dogs of War” by Frederick Forsyth from Antony’s speech in Julius Caesar.