Shakespeare on Page and Stage Selected Essays

This volume presents a winning selection of the very best essays from the long and distinguished career of Stanley Wells, one of the most well-known and respected Shakespeare scholars in the world. Wells's accomplishments include editing the entire canon of Shakespeare plays for the ground-breaking Oxford Shakespeare, and over his lifetime he has made significant contributions to debates over literary criticism of the works, genre study, textual theory, Shakespeare's afterlife in the theatre, and contemporary performance. The volume is introduced by Peter Holland, and its thirty chapters are divided into themed sections: 'Shakespearian Influences', 'Essays on Particular Works', 'Shakespeare in the Theatre', and 'Shakespeare's Text'. An afterword by Margreta de Grazia concludes the volume.

1 - Shakespeare: Man of the European Renaissance
2 - Tales from Shakespeare
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
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
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

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).