3 Review(s)

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. For the second edition of All's Well That Ends Well, Alexander Leggatt has written a completely new introduction to Russell Fraser's text of one of Shakespeare's most puzzling, ambiguous and demanding plays. Leggatt's interest in performance is evident throughout the introduction, particularly in his discussion of the instability of the main characters. He also provides a full, illustrated and thoughtful account of the play's critical and theatrical fortunes to the end of the twentieth century, and explores our experience as an audience of seeing and hearing the play performed. An updated reading list completes the volume.