The story of a recently discovered portrait of a young William Shakespeare traces its origins and history to discuss how it came into being, its possession by the same family for more than four hundred years, the painstaking forensic study that confirmed its age, and the plausibility of its authenticity. 20,000 first printing.

Containing annotated extracts from key sources, this guide to William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' explores the debates of this play. Looking at issues such as the representation of gender roles, political violence, and the dramatisation of evil, this volume provides a way through the contextual and critical material that surrounds Shakespeare's text.

Product Description: Beginning with the rape of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, this book traces the linked themes of violation and identity through seven Shakespearean tragedies. The shock effects of Lavinia's rape reverberate throughout Shakespeare's later tragedies...read more

Product Description: This updated and expanded analysis of King Lear in performance includes new chapters on the television version of the Royal National Theatre production directed by Richard Eyre and starring Ian Holm; and on Akira Kurosawa's Ran. Earlier chapters provide close, detailed analyses of the stage, film and television interpretations of John Gielgud, Harley Granville Barker, Paul Scofield, Peter Brook, Peter Ustinov, Michael Gambon, Adrian Noble, Grigori Kozintsev, Michael Hordern, Jonathan Miller, Laurence Olivier and Michael Elliott...read more

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Product Description: This introduction examines the continuity and variety of Shakepeare's work and the creative use he made of his inherited conventions. The first section places Shakespeare in the context of classical and Renaissance comedy, his Elizabethan predecessors and the traditions of popular festivity...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline comedy, covering both public and private theatres, emphasizing the eclectic, experimental nature of this comedy--its departures from the mainstream New Comedy tradition and its searching, witty analysis of social and personal relations in court, city and country...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: English Stage Comedy 1490-1900 is a unique and beautifully written study of the comedy of the English stage from the Tudor period to the late twentieth century. It shows how this remarkably enduring genre has dealt with the tensions of social life, using its conventions as tools for social inquiry...read more

Product Description: Jacobean Public Theatre recovers for the modern reader the acting, production and performance values of the public theatre of Jacobean London. It relates this drama to the popular culutre of the day and concludes with a close study of four important plays, including King Lear, which emerge in an unexpected light as the products of popular tradition...read more

Product Description: Shakespeare is consistently interested in rulers, law, questions of authority and obedience. In this study, Alexander Leggatt examines the depiction of state and public power in the English and Roman histories.

Product Description: The most important period in the history of English drama is revealed in Alexander Leggatt's challenging account. The author considers English drama from the beginning of Shakespeare's career to the restoration of Charles II. Focusing on Shakespeare and the development of his art, he examines all his major contemporaries: Jonson, Middleton, Webster, Beaumont, Fletcher and Ford...read more