Shakespeare on Page and Stage Selected Essays

Stanley Wells, Emeritus, University of Birmingham, Honorary President, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Sir Stanley Wells, CBE, FRSL, described by Roy Hattersley as 'Our greatest authority on Shakespeare's life and work', is Honorary President, Life Trustee, and former Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He was Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, from 1988-1997, and is now Emeritus Professor. He is an Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has been General Editor of the Oxford Shakespeare since 1978 and is General Editor of the Penguin Shakespeare. One of the most distinguished Shakespearian scholars currently working, his publications include Shakespeare For All Time (2002), Shakespeare & Co (2006), Shakespeare, Sex, and Love (2010), Great Shakespeare Actors (2015), William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction (2015), and Shakespeare's Tragedies: A Very Short Introduction (2017).

Introduction, Peter Holland
I. Shakespearian Influences
1. Shakespeare: Man of the European Renaissance
2. Tales from Shakespeare
II. Essays on Particular Works
3. The Failure of The Two Gentlemen of Verona
4. The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear: A Structural Comparison
5. The Integration of Violent Action in Titus Andronicus
6. The Challenges of Romeo and Juliet
7. Juliet's Nurse: The Uses of Inconsequentiality
8. The Lamentable Tale of Richard II
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream Revisited
10. Translations in A Midsummer Night's Dream
11. The Once and Future King Lear
12. Points of Stagecraft in The Tempest
13. 'My Name is Will': Shakespeare's Sonnets and Autobiography
14. Shakespeare Without Sources
15. Shakespeare and Romance
III. Shakespeare in the Theatre
16. Boys Should be Girls: Shakespeare s Female Roles and the Boy Players
17. Staging Shakespeare's Ghosts
18. Staging Shakespeare's Apparitions and Dream Visions
19. Shakespeare in Planché's Extravaganzas
20. Shakespeare in Max Beerbohm's Theatre Criticism
21. Shakespeare in Leigh Hunt's Theatre Criticism
22. Shakespeare in Hazlitt's Theatre Criticism
23. Peter Hall's Coriolanus, 1959
IV. Shakespeare's Text
24. On Being a General Editor
25. Editorial Treatment of Foul-Paper Texts: Much Ado About Nothing as Test Case
26. Money in Shakespeare's Comedies
27. To Read a Play: The Problem of Editorial Intervention
28. The First Folio: Where Should We be Without it?
29. The Limitations of the First Folio
Afterword, Margreta de Grazia
Notes
Select List of Publications
Acknowledgements
Index