Shakepeare Criticism

Dear Mr. Shakespeare: Letters to a Jobbing Playwright
Simon Reade
Written as a series of fictional letters to the emerging Elizabethan author, Dear Mr Shakespeare charts his career from young actor, poet and fledgling playwright through to national icon and old man of the theatre. Simon Reade has drawn on his time as Literary Manager at the Royal Shakespeare Company to produce a sharp and novel guide to England's greatest writer, full of witty and often surprising insights into the man and his contemporaries. A unique introduction to Shakespeare's life and times, to be enjoyed by aficionados, actors, academics and audiences alike. Softcover, 237 pp. $25.50.

Prefaces to Shakespeare
Tony Tanner
In the final ten years of his life, Tony Tanner tackled the largest project any critic in English can take on -- writing a preface to each of Shakespeare's plays. In doing so, he has brought Shakespeare to life, explicating everything from big-picture issues such as the implications of shifts in Elizabethan culture to close readings of Shakespeare's deployment of complex words in his plays. Following the model of Samuel Johnson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tony Taylor's collected introductions promises to be the next essential text in the great tradition of Shakespeare prefaces. Hardcover, 825 pp. $47.95.

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
James Shapiro
For more than 200 years after William Shakespeare's death, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Hardcover, 339 pp. $26.00.

Shakespeare's Wife
Germaine Greer
Now in softcover, Shakespeare's Wife is a compelling, insightful book that goes a long way toward righting the wrongs done to Ann Shakespeare. Germaine Greer steps off the well-trodden paths of orthodoxy, asks new questions and opens new fields of investigation into this fascinating subject. Softcover, 406 pp. $21.00.

The Shakespeare Encyclopedia
A.D. Cousins
The Shakespeare Encyclopedia is an authoritative, visually stunning, and entertaining guide to all things Shakespeare, explaining the themes, plots, significance, and uncovering some of the mystery of the man himself. Hardcover, 307 pp. $35.00.

Shakespeare Matters
Geoff Spiteri
This wonderful compendium of Shakespearian facts and trivia is proof that the Great Bard remains as relevant as ever. It's a fascinating mix, with sections on everything from bawdiness to binge-drinking, racism to rude gestures and South Park to Star Trek. So whether you're a long-standing fan or studying the playwright for the first time, Shakespeare Matters is sure to both delight and inspire. Hardcover, 59 pp. $11.95.

The Shakespeare Handbook
Andrew Hiscock & Stephen Longstaffe
The Shakespeare Handbook is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare and early modern literature. It provides a one-stop resource for students with the essential information and guidance needed from the beginning of a course through to developing more advanced knowledge and skills. Softcover, 261 pp. $36.95.

Concord of Sweet Sounds
F. David Hoeniger
Concord of Sweet Sounds presents, in words and images, the musical instruments of Shakespeare's time. In his plays and poems, Shakespeare mentions twenty-seven different intruments specifically. In this remarkable volume, celebrated wood engraver Gerard Brender a Brandis has collaborated with a distinguished professor of English to create a work of art and scholarship both beautiful and informative. Softcover, 57 pp. $16.95.

The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World
Paul Collins
A tri-continental travelogue in five acts, The Book of William traces the history of one of the world's most hotly pursued literary treasures, encompassing the Fleet Street machinations of the eighteenth century, the nineteenth-century quest for lost Folios, the obsessive acquisitions by twentieth-century oilmen, and the high-tech hoards of twenty-first-century Japan. Collins weaves a captivating narrative as Folios are dearly bought, preciously guarded, and more dearly sold; dusted off in attics; lost in oceans and fires; facsimiled; scanned; and -- ultimately -- immortalized. Hardcover, 243 pp. $31.00.

Shakespeare on Toast
Ben Crystal
Who's afraid of William Shakespeare? Just about everyone. He wrote too much and what he did write is inaccessible and elitist. Right? Wrong. In Shakespeare on Toast, Ben Crystal sweeps the cobwebs from the Bard and finds Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry, revealing both the man and his work to be both revelant and accessible. Softcover, 263 pp. $16.00.

Shakespeare and Elizabeth: The Meeting of Two Myths
Helen Hackett
Did William Shakespeare ever meet Queen Elizabeth? There is no evidence of such a meeting, yet for three centuries writers and artists have been inspired to imagine it. Shakespeare and Elizabeth is the first book to explore the rich history of invented encounters between the poet and the queen, examining how and why the mythology of these two charismatic and enduring cultural icons have been intertwined in British and American culture. Hardcover, 288 pp. $34.95.

The Tainted Muse: Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare And His Time
Robert Brustein
Engaging a different theme in each chapter, Robert Brustein explores Shakespeare's complicated attitudes towards women; his dislike of womanish men; his admiration of blunt, plainspoken men. In doing so, Brustein reveals a playwright constantly exploiting and exploring his own personal stances and an artist who invariably reflects the predilections of his age, yet always manages to transcend them. Hardcover, 277 pp. $32.95.

Shakespeare and Modern Culture
Marjorie Garber
From the authour of Shakespeare After All comes this new study whose premise is that "Shakespeare makes modern culture and modern culture makes Shakespeare." Marjorie Garber, one of the world's premier Shakespeare scholars, delves into ten plays to explore the interrelationships between Shakespeare and the twentieth century and contemporary culture. Hardcover, 326 pp. $34.00.

Becoming Shakespeare
Jack Lynch
Becoming Shakespeare begins where most Shakespeare stories end -- with his death in 1616 -- and relates the fascinating story of how the provincial playwright became the universal Bard. Unlike later literary giants, Shakespeare created no stir when he died; when London's theatres were shut down nearly twenty-six years later, he seemed destined for oblivion. It was only decades later that scholars began taking him seriously, eventually elevating him to the status of genius. Jack Lynch vividly chronicles Shakespeare's afterlife -- from his plays' revivals to their "improvements" by politicians and playwrights, culminating with the bardolatry of Shakespeare's three-hundredth birthday celebration in 1864. Softcover, 306 pp. $17.50.

Shakespeare On Toast
Ben Crystal
In Shakespeare On Toast actor and writer Ben Crystal brings an accessible introduction to Shakespeare's works without dumbing them down. This is a book for everyone, whether you're reading Shakespeare for the first time, occasionally find him troublesome, think you know him backwards, or have never set foot near one of his plays but have always wanted to. Hardcover, 263 pp. $24.00.

The Everything Shakespeare Book
Second Edition
Cork Milner
Whether you're a longtime fam or new to his writing, The Everything Shakespeare Book will help you fully appreciate and understand Shakespeare's works. In everyday language this book covers everything from All's Well that Ends Well to The Winter's Tale - and every play and sonnet in between. This book is the perfect introduction to the world and works of "The Bard of Avon." Softcover, 320 pp. $16.50.

Shakespeare's Consuls, Cardinals, and Kings
Dick Riley
Shakespeare's Consuls, Cardinals, and Kings sets the historical context for the events portrayed in Shakespeare's major histories. It reviews the sources he used and analyzes how he reshaped that material -- often telescoping events and combining characters -- to create his dramas. It also offers insights of later historians about the lives and careers of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, and the English monarchs King John, Richard II, Henry IV, and others. Designed to give both students and casual readers a deeper understanding and a more enjoyable experience of the history plays, each chapter of this book focuses on the period and lives portrayed in one of these dramas, and also provides a brief guide to available film and video versions. Softcover, 210 pp. $24.95.

Twelfth Night: Character Studies
Graham Atkin
The characters of Twelfth Night are both memorable and engaging and it is through their funny, and at times bitter, interplay that we experience the peculiar world of Shakespeare's Illyria. This study begins with an introduction to the concept of 'characters' on the early-modern stage before proceeding to a textual analysis of each of the main characters in the play, looking at how what they say and do, and what is said about them, creates the illusion of character. Softcover, $20.95.

Othello: Character Studies
Nicholas Potter
Othello is a major Shakespearean text, studied widely and often adapted for film and TV and especially challenging for a multicultural society. Othello lends itself to criticism through discussion of the major characters although this study also focuses on the recent criticism's analysis of the characters as 'signifiers'. The study of the key characters takes the discussion of the text immediately into the central issues of 'otherness', gender, race and power. Softcover, 134 pp. $20.95.

Shakespeare
Johann Gottfried Herder
One of the most important and original works in the history of literary criticism, this passionate essay pioneered a new, historicist approach to cultural artifacts by arguing that they should be judged not by their conformity to a set of conventions imported from another time and place, but by the effectiveness of their response to their own historical and cultural context. Hardcover, 84 pp. $15.95.

Think On My Words: Exploring Shakespeare's Language
David Crystal
David Crystal addresses many questions in this lively and original introduction to Shakespeare's language. Covering in turn the five main dimensions of language structure - writing system, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and conversational style - the book shows how examining these linguistic 'nuts and bolts' can help us achieve a greater appreciation of Shakespeare's linguistic creativity. Softcover, 254 pp. $20.95.

Shakespeare
Jeremy Lemmon
William Shakespeare was born a tradesman's son in Stratford-upon-Avon and died one of the town's wealthiest and most respected citizens. This book, designed both for the student as well as the general reader, aims to consider Shakespeare's life and work - all his plays and major poems - within the context of his times. Softcover, 201 pp. $16.95.

Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays
Colin McGinn
Shakespeare has always been celebrated for the depth of his themes, the vividness of his characters, and the beauty of his poetry. However, the philosophical nature of his ouevre has often been overlooked. Focusing on Shakespeare's six most regarded plays - A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest - noted philosopher Colin McGinn provides a brilliant analysis of the major philosophical themes embedded in the Bard's work, including the nature and persistence of the self, the existence and nature of evil, and the power of language to influence and shape the human mind. Softcover, 230 pp. $16.50.

This Wide and Universal Theater: Shakespeare in Performance Then & Now
David Bevington
For generations, most readers have first encountered Shakespeare's plays in books, rather than on-stage. In schools, his works are primarily taught by professors of English, many of whom know little about the theater. Yet Shakespeare was a man of the stage - so what is lost when we leave Shakespeare the dramatist behind? What can we learn by thinking of his works in terms of performance? Here, David Bevington answers these questions, exploring productions of Shakespeare both in the playwright's own time, and in the succeeding centuries. Hardcover, 241 pp. $30.00.

Filthy Shakespeare
Pauline Kiernan
Celebrating the Bard in all his bawdy glory, Filthy Shakespeare is a hilarious and insightful look into the down-and-dirty sexual puns lurking in Shakespeare's body of work. Hardcover, 303 pp. $24.00.

Shakespeare & Co.
Stanley Wells
Shakespeare is one of the greatest of English figures, considered a genius for all time. Yet as this enthralling book shows, he was at heart a man of the theatre, one among a community of artists in the teeming world of Renaissance London - from the enigmmatic spy Christopher Marlowe to the self-aggrandizing Ben Jonson, from the actor Richard Burbage to the brilliant Thomas Middleton. By exploring Shakespeare's contemporaries, Shakespeare & Co. throws fresh new light on the man himself. Softcover, 286 pp. $21.00.

The Tempest: Shakespeare Handbooks
R. Trevor Griffiths
The extended commentary in Trevor Griffiths's handbook The Tempest helps readers to see and hear The Tempest as they read, and explore its theatrical potential in terms of a variety of challenges. The handbook also includes coverage of key theatrical interpretations by figures such as Charles Kean, Beerbohm Tree, John Gielgud, Patrick Stewart and Simon Sussell Beale, as well as explorations of major film productions. The handbook is a stimulating resource, and an excellent guide to the 'rich and strange' life of one of Shakespeare's most enigmatic plays. Softcover, 160 pp. $21.00.

To Be Or Not To Be: Shakespeare NOW!
Douglas Bruster
Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy is quoted more often than any other passage in Shakespeare. It is arguably the most famous speech in the Western world - though few of us can remember much about it. This book carefully unpacks the individual words, phrases and sentences of Hamlet's soliloquy in order to reveal how and why it has achieved its remarkable hold on our culture. Softcover, 109 pp. $20.95.

Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned A Provincial Playwright Into The Bard
Jack Lynch
The author, a professor of English at Rutgers University and a Samuel Johnson scholar, takes the reader down the long, winding and fascinating posthumous road which the Bard's reputation has travelled.The book tells the story of how Shakespeare ascended, with the help of countless actors, editors, scholars, readers and teachers to the epicentre of English culture. Hardcover, 306 pp. $31.95.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare On Film
Russell Jackson
This Companion is a collection of critical and historical essays on the films adapted from, and inspired by, Shakespeare's plays. The emphasis is on feature films for cinema, rather than television, with strong coverage of Hamlet, Richard III, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. A guide to further reading and a useful filmography are also included. Softcover, 349 pp. $28.95.

Will & Me
Dominic Dromgoole
Shakespeare has always been a big part of Dominic Dromgoole's life. This is the story of how he has stumbled, shambled and occasionally glided through the years with the bard as his guide. Along the way he shows what Shakespeare's rough-and-ready genius can teach us about love, war, sex, death, drunkenness, friendship, and more. Softcover, 293 pp. $19.00.

Shakespeare Thinking
Philip Davis
This book is about the almost physical effect Shakespeare has upon mind at its most primary level of excited existence. In search of that dramatic sense of mental activity, Philip Davis ranges from Renaissance writerss, such as Montaigne, to Romantic and Victorian writers on Shakespeare, such as Hazlitt, William James, and E.A. Abbott. Shakespeare Thinking recovers a lost form of dramatic mentality crucial to creative life. Softcover, 105 pp. $20.95.

Godless Shakespeare
Eric S. Mallin
Godless Shakespeare is the first book to discuss Shakespeare's plays from an atheist perspective. Although it is clear that Shakespeare engaged with and deployed much of his culture's broadly religious interests - his language is shot through with biblical quotations, priestly sermonizing and Christian imagery - Mallin argues that there is a profound absence of or hostility to God in his plays. Softcover, 132 pp. $20.95.

Shakespeare: The Basics
Sean McEvoy
The new edition of this guide, aimed quarely at the student new to Shakespeare, is based on the new approaches shaping Shakespeare studies. Sean McEvoy illustrates how interpretations of Shakespeare are linked to cultural and political contexts and provides readings of the most frequently studied plays in the light of contemporary critical thought. Softcover, 289 pp. $22.50.

Shakespeare and the American Popular Stage
Frances Teague
This study changes our understanding of Shakespeare's presence in American life. The book looks at how Shakespeare came to America just before the Revolutionary War. Teague re-examines P.T. Barnum's attempt to buy Shakespeare's birthplace, the Astor Place Riot in which twenty-three people died, and the way both Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth regarded Shakespeare. With discussion of over twenty Shakespearean musicals, this study demonstrates that Shakespeare has always been present in popular shows. Softcover, 221 pp. $34.95.

Where There's a Will There's a Way
or All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Shakespeare
Laurie Maguire
In this learned and illuminating book, Laurie Maguire brings her deep knowledge and love of Shakespeare's plays to bear on the great questions, challenges, and choices we face in life. The bard's classic tragedies, comedies, and histories still invite us to explore our emotions, and both challenge and reaffirm our judgments about love and sex, death and grief, rebellion, midlife crisis, racism, religion, war and politics, marriage, family, and friendships. They also offer suggestions for change. They comfort, encourage, and provide the solutions that Maguire convincingly argues are as wise and compelling today as they were when they were written. They help us take control over the plot of our own lives, and embody a code of conduct in which Shakespeare lays out the basic principles for living. To read Shakespeare is to understand what it means to be human: To read Where There's a Will There's a Way is to better understand how to deal with it.

Shylock Is Shakespeare
Kenneth Gross
Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice who famously demands a pound of flesh as security for a loan to his antisemitic tormentors, is one of Shakespeare's most complex and idiosyncratic characters. With his unsettling eloquence and his varying voices of protest, play, rage, and refusal, Shylock remains a source of perennial fascination. What explains the strange and enduring force of his character, so unlike that of any other in Shakespeare's plays? Kenneth Gross posits that the figure of Shylock is so powerful because he is the voice of Shakespeare himself. Hardcover, 202 pp. $29.95.

Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays
Colin McGinn
Shakespeare has always been celebrated for the depth of his themes, the vividness of his characters, and the beauty of his poetry. However, the philosophical nature of his opus has often been overlooked. Interweaving close textual analysis and conceptual exploration, Shakespeare's Philosophy pursues questions of character against a background of their philosophical significance. Hardcover, 230 pp. $32.50.

How to Read a Shakespeare Play
David Bevington
How should we read Shakespeare plays? In this clear and succinct book, author David Bevington suggests that readers think of themselves as armchair directors, deciding what the actors should wear, what social class they represent, why they are there, and, most importantly, what they are after. This introduction to Shakespeare will encourage readers to approach his work aggressively, interactively, and inquisitively. Softcover, 172 pp. $25.95.

Hamlet: A Sourcebook
Sean McEvoy
Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Shakespeare's remarkable play offers: extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and many interpretations of the texts; annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews, critical works, and the text itself; cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticisms; suggestions for further reading. Softcover, 183 pp. $34.95.

William Shakespeare's Macbeth
A Sourcebook
Edited by Alexander Leggat
This guide to Shakespeare's Macbeth offers extensive introductory comment on context, critical history, and interpretations from the play's first performance through modern times. Annotated extracts from key source documents, reviews, critical works and Macbeth itself. Sourcebook is cross-referenced in order to demonstrate links between texts, contexts, and criticism; and includes suggestions for further reading.
Part of the Routledge Guides To Literature series. Softcover, 197 pp. $35.95.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Tragedies
Richard Dutton & Jean F. Howard
This companion to Shakespeare's tragedies contains original essays on every tragedy from Titus Andronicus to Coriolanus, as well as thirteen additional essays on such topics as Shakespeare's Roman tragedies, Shakespeare's tragedies on film, Shakespeare's tragedies of love, Hamlet in performance, and tragic emotion in Shakespeare. Softcover, 491 pp. $48.95.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Histories
Richard Dutton & Jean F. Howard
This companion to Shakespeare's histories contains original essays on every history play from Henry VI to Henry V as well as fourteen original essays on such topics as censorship in Shakespeare's histories, the relation of Shakespeare's plays to other dramatic histories of the period, Shakespeare's histories on film, the homoerotics of Shakespeare's history plays, and nation formation in Shakespeare's histories. Softcover, 484 pp. $48.95.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Comedies
Richard Dutton & Jean F. Howard
This companion to Shakespeare's comedies contains original essays on every comedy from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to Twelfth Night. In addition, the volume features twelve essays on such topics as the humoral body in Shakespearean comedy, Shakespeare's comedies on film, Shakespeare's relation to other comic writers of his time, Shakespeare's cross-dressing comedies, and the geographies of Shakespearean comedy. Softcover, $48.95.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Poems, Problem Comedies, Late Plays
Richard Dutton & Jean F. Howard
This companion to Shakespeare's poems, problem comedies, and late plays contains original essays on Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and The Sonnets, as well as Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Henry VIII, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. In addition, it includes eleven essays on such topics as the reception history of the sonnets, collaboration in Shakespeare's middle and late plays, the generic classification of Shakespeare's late plays, The Tempest in performance, and the relation of Shakespeare's "problem plays " to the work of contemporary dramatists. Softcover, 482 pp. $48.95.

A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen
Diana E. Henderson
This Concise Companion offers readers a variety of accessible routes into Shakespeare on screen and supports further study of the subject through the inclusion of a bibliography, a chronological chart, and a thorough index. At the same time, it serves as a focal point for exploring fundamental issues in the study of literature and culture more broadly, such as the relationship between elite and popular culture, art and the marketplace, text, image, and performance. Softcover, 264 pp. $41.95.

Shakespeare
Mark van Doren
This legendary book features a series of smart, witty, deeply perceptive essays about each of Shakespeare's plays, together with a further discussion of the poems. Writing with an incomparable knowledge of his subject, but without a hint of pedantry, Mark Van Doren elucidates both the astonishing boldness and myriad subtleties of Shakespeare's protean art. This is a book to be both treasured by both new and longtime students of the Bard. Softcover, 302 pp. $20.95.

Shakespeare: The Seven Ages of Human Experience
David Bevington
What makes Shakespeare great? Why do we still read and perform his works? In this deft and witty introduction, David Bevington argues that Shakespeare continues to live among us today because his representations of the human condition are believable, endearing, and touchingly human. The book is structured around Shakespeare's arc of human life from infancy and childhood to adulthood, advancing age, and eventual death, as set out by Jaques in the "Seven Ages of Man" speech from As You Like It. Softcover, 264 pp. $27.95.

The Dances of Shakespeare
Tim Hoskins
The Dances of Shakespeare offers brief introduction to the performance of the entire repertory of dance styles featured in Shakespeare's plays. Designed for the practicing director, actor, or choreographer, this book provides clear instructions on how to perform popular social dances of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including masques, brawls, canaries, corantos, galliards, jigs, La Volta, pavans, morris dances, and roundels. Softcover, 135 pp. $23.95.

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101 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare
Janet Ware & Al Davis
From his supposed shotgun wedding to the mayhem wrought by the so-called Macbeth curse, 101 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare serves up a fascinating slice of the bard's life, times, and work. Whether you're an avid fan or a Shakespearean novice, these amusing anecdotes will have you waiting with "bated breath" to read more. Softcover, 245 pp. $13.95.

The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare's Plays
J.C. Trewin
This compact guide provides instant reference to every aspect of Shakespeare's performances and is invaluable to all theatre-goers and students of English literature. For each play there is a synopsis of the plot, a list of players and notes on the chief characters, and a summary of the performance history. Hardcover, 207 pp. $19.95.

" Shakespeare" by Another Name
Mark Anderson
In the centuries since William Shakespeare's death, more and more questions has arisen about the true identity of the author of the immortal omnibus which includes everything from the soaring soliloquies of Hamlet to the sensual imagery of the "Eighteenth Sonnet". In this groundbreaking work, Mark Anderson focuses his attention on the Elizabethan court playwright Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, of whom filmmaker and acclaimed Shakespearean dramatist Orson Welles once said, "I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don't, there are some awful funny coincidences to explain away." A prominent courtier and quintessential Renaissance man, a scholar, spendthrift, scoundrel, cosmopolitan traveler, military adventurer, artistic patron, and prolific ghostwriter, Edward de Vere is brought to vivid life in this provocative biography. Hardcover, 598 pp. $45.50.

Shakespeare's Tragedies: Violation and Identity
Alexander Leggatt
This erudite work of Shakespeare criticism traces the linked themes of violation and identity through seven of the Bard's tragedies. By looking at Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, this book considers the ways in which acts of violence provoke questions about the identities of the victims, the perpetrators, and the acts themselves. Written in clear, accessible style, this study provokes questions about the human implications of Shakespearean tragedy. Softcover, 228 pp. $38.95.

Shakespeare at the Huntington
Jane Purcell
The Huntington Library contains one of the richest collections in the world of Shakespeare's writings in the original published editions. One needn't have the collector's passion for books or a knowledge of academic jargon to find the Huntington's Shakespeare collection fascinating. This book focuses on some of the more important of Henry E. Huntington's acquisitions in terms of understanding Shakespeare, with special emphasis on quatro copies of the plays published in Shakespeare's lifetime. The illustrations are from the Huntington's library and art collections. Hardcover, 85 pp. $18.95.

The Rough Guide to Shakespeare
Andrew Dickson
The Rough Guide to Shakespeare is the ultimate companion to the life and work of the world's greatest playwright. It features full coverage of all 38 plays, including a synopsis, character list, stage history and a full critical essay for each. The Bard's life and career are brought into clear focus with this information-packed guide. Softcover, 532 pp. $34.99.

The Age of Shakespeare
Frank Kermode
In The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to illuminate the life and work of William Shakespeare. Kermode takes readers on a tour of the Bard's England in the age of the Tudors, vividly portraying London's society, it's growing diversity and expanding economic power, its court, its epidemic, and its arts -- including, of course, its theatre. Softcover, 214 pp. $17.95.

A Case for Shylock: Around the World with Shakespeare's Jew
Gareth Armstrong
From San Francisco to Sri Lanka, from Romania to New Zealand, this is the story of Gareth Armstrong's travelling one-man show about Shylock. Frequently hilarious, often provocative, this account of a Gentile actor's exploration of the most famous of fictional Jews is fascinating, revealing, and always entertaining. Softcover, 211 pp. $33.00.

Queen Elizabeth: Selected Works
Steven W. May
Queen Elizabeth I remains one of the most admired and enigmatic figures in world history. While details of her life and reign are familiar to many, less well known is her prolific and prodigious mastery of the written word. Culled from searches through more than a hundred international manuscript archives, the texts contained in this unique edition are presented in modern English spelling and set forth in their historical context. Softcover, 348 pp. $22.00.

Shakespeare's Tribe
Church, Nation And Theater in Renaissance England
Jeffrey Knapp
Knapp makes a provocative case for Shakespeare as a godly playwright in the face of conventional wisdom about the Bard's enduring secularism. Hardcover, 277 pp. $59.95.

Playgoing in Shakespeare's London
Third Edition
Andrew Gurr
This is a newly revised edition of Andrew Gurr's classic account of the people for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays. Gurr has assembled evidence from the writing of the time to describe the physical structure of the playhouses, the services provided in the auditorium, the cost of a ticket and a cushion, the size of the crowds, the smells, the pickpockets, and the collective feelings generated by the plays. Softcover, 344 pp. $40.95.

Radical Tragedy
Third Edition
Jonathan Dollimore
When it was first published, Radical Tragedy was hailed as a groundbreaking reassessment of the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. An engaged reading of the past with compelling contemporary significance, Radical Tragedy remains a landmark study of Renaissance drama and a classic of cultural materialist criticism. Softcover, 312 pp. $35.95.

Looking for Sex in Shakespeare
Stanley Wells
In Looking for Sex in Shakespeare one of the best-known and most versatile of Shakespeare scholars, Stanley Wells, considers how far sexual meaning in Shakespeare's writing is a matter of interpretation by actors, directors and critics. This lively, provocative and open-minded new book will appeal to a broad readership of students, theatregoers and Shakespeare lovers. Softcover, 111 pp. $24.95.

Searching Shakespeare:
Studies in Culture and Authority
Derek Cohen
Original in topic and approach, Searching Shakespeare presents a political-historical exploration of Shakespeare's drama and argues that his plays consistently portray the clash between the passionate search for individuality and the quest for social harmony as irresolvable. Cohen makes a modern political analysis which reveals why Shakespeare portrayed the quest for individuation and self-expression as necessarily

Shakespearean Afterlives
Ten Characters With a Life All Their Own
John O'Connor
Shakespearean Afterlives is a cultural biography of Shakespeare's most famous characters. From Shylock to the Shrew, Richard the Third to Romeo, it charts the many and various existences that these characters have led outside the pages of the First Folio. Featuring interviews with experienced actors and directors, this book will delight any enthusiast of the Bard's plays. Hardcover, 356 pp. $40.00.

Shakespeare, The Movie, II: Popularizing the Plays on Film, TV, Video, and DVD
Richard Burt & Lynda E. Boose
Following from the phenomenally successful Shakespeare, The Movie, this volume brings together an invaluable new collection of 16 essays on cinematic Shakespeares in the 1990s and beyond. This a must-read for any student of Shakespeare, film, media, or cultural studies. Softcover, 340 pp. $38.95.

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Inspirational Leadership
Richard Olivier
Henry V is Shakespeare's greatest leader: inspired and inspiring, visionary yet pragmatic, powerful yet responsible. This fascinating book draws on Olivier's intimate knowledge of the play, and its absorbing central character, to unmask the secrets of inspirational leadership and reveal the timeless lessons it holds for managers and leaders today. Softcover 211 pp. $26.95

Shakespeare and the Force of Modern Performance
W.B. Worthen
What is the relationship between the dramatic text and the meanings of performance? Using performances of Shakespeare's work as examples, W. B. Worthen argues that the text cannot govern the force of its performance, but rather becomes significant only as embodied in the changing conventions of its performance.Softcover, 274 pp. $34.95.

Shakespeare and Violence
R.A. Foakes
Shakespeare & Violence connects to current anxieties about the problem of violence, and shows how similar concerns are central to Shakespeare's plays. This book is the first to examine the development of Shakespeare's representations of violence and to explain their importance in shaping his career as a dramatists. Softcover, 224 pp. $34.95.

Shakespeare After Mass Media
Richard Burke
From marketing to electronic Shakespeares, comics to romance novels, Star Trek to Kenneth Branagh, radio and popular music to Bartlett's Quotations, Shakespeare After Mass Media explores the contemporary cultural significance of Shakespeare in mass media. Theoretically sophisticated, yet accessibly written. Softcover, 340 pp. $39.95.

Editing Shakespeare
In Arden
Ann Thompson and Gordon McMullan
In recent years, editing and the theoretical frameworks that underlie editing practices have become a lively and controversial focus of debate. This collection of specially commissioned essays from an international group of Arden editors focuses on the particular issues of editing Shakespeare's texts. Softcover, 288 pp. $62.95.

Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life
Fintan O'Toole
In this provocative but scholarly guide to Shakespearian tragedy, Fintan O'Toole shows how the plays have been sublimated by ultra-conservative critics, and thus made unitelligible to modern students. O'Toole challenges the traditional approach towards the study of four key plays -- Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth -- and provides an entertaining and absorbing appreciation of the dramatic qualities of each. Softcover, 164 pp. $16.95.

Shakespeare in Canada:
A World Elsewhere?
Diana Brydon & Irena R. Makaryk
Is there a distinctly Canadian Shakespeare? What is the status and function of Shakespeare in various locations within the nation: at Stratford, on CBC radio, in regional and university theatres, in Canadian drama and popular culture? This is the first work to engage Shakespeare with distinctly Canadian debates addressing nationalism, separatism, feminism, and postcolonialism. Hardcover, 490 pp. $70.00.

Henslowe's Diary
R.A. Foakes
The diary of Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose Theatre in London during the 1590's, remains the most valuable source of information about the workings of the Elizabethan public theatres. For this new edition one of the original editors, R.A. Foakes, has added a new preface and reading list. Softcover, 368 pp. $44.95.

Roar of the Canon
Charles Marowitz
Acclaimed stage director and theatre critic Charles Marowitz probes the mysteries of some of the more problematic plays in Shakespeare's canon. Through dialogues with Shakespearian scholar Jan Kott, Marowitz illuminates the constantly changing nature and philosophical nuances of the various plays. Hardcover, 181 pp., $36.95.

Shakespeare's Tragic Skepticism
Millicent Bell
In this scholarly text, Millicent Bell focuses on Shakespeare's apparent subscription to the philosophy of skepticism and doubt as expressed in six of his major works. By way of an historical contexualization, Bell examines Shakespeare's existential impulses and thereby elucidates the complexity and weight of his tragedies. A fascinating and strongly argued account. Hardcover, 283 pp. $42.95.

A Feminist Companion To Shakespeare
Edited by Dympna Callaghan
The question is not whether Shakespeare studies need feminism, but whether feminism needs Shakespeare. The all-women team of contributors argue that not only is Shakespeare important for women, his works are specifically important for feminism. Softcover, $46.95.

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Last modified July 18, 2012.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.