Donated by Sydney Harris.

A compact edition of the complete works of William Shakespeare. It combines impeccable scholarship with beautifully written editorial material and a user-friendly layout of the text. Also included is a foreword, list of contents, general introduction, essay on language, contemporary allusions to Shakespeare, glossary, consolidated bibliography and index of first lines of Sonnets.

A remarkable resurgence of interest has taken place over recent years in a biographical approach to the work of early modern poets and dramatists, in particular to the plays and poems of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson. The contributors to this volume approach the topic in a manner that is at once critically and historically alert. They acknowledge that the biographical evidence for all three authors is limited, thus throwing the emphasis acutely on interpretation. In addition to new scholarship, the essays are valuable for their awareness of the challenges posed by recent redirections of critical methodology. Scepticism and self-criticism are marked features of the writing gathered here.

Through considerable detective work, this work sets out to show that Julius Caeser was the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre on 12 June 1599. Drawing on many areas of expertise, which are rarely allied in Shakespeare scholarship to such an extent, including biblical, liturgical, social and theatrical history, the author sheds new light not only on Julius Caeser but on a variety of accepted beliefs. These include: why Hamlet was not crowned king when his father died; why Brutus would not swear to murder Caeser; why the Elizabethan authorities retained the Julian calender; and why the orthodox dates of the first composition of both Twelfth Night and Hamlet can be called into question.