Romeo and Juliet otherwise specified, are taken from the Arden Shakespeare second edition (Gibbons, 1980) based on the Q2 text of 1599, with elements from Q1 of 1597. Under its referencing system, which uses Roman numerals, II.ii.33 means act 2, scene 2, line 33, and a 0 in place of a scene number refers to the prologue to the act. Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and along with "Hamlet",
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks the title is unconfirmed and may have been related to a zoo incident in Egypt, or possibly even a fire that occurred at a circus. Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family. In later years, Burroughs did not consider "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks" worth retrieving from obscurity. In the 1986 documentary "What Happened to Kerouac?" he dismissed it as "not a distinguished work." According to James Grauerholz, numerous attempts were made by Kerouac and others to get the book published, until Burroughs brought a lawsuit over the use of quotations from the manuscript