The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare

Can Shakespeare be contained in a single volume, even one within such a prestigious series as this? Doesn’t he need the whole series to himself? Well, this is the fourth companion to Shakespeare to be published by Cambridge University Press since 1934 (the intervening two were in 1971 and 1986) so perhaps he needs constant attention rather than any single attempt, which would inevitably be doomed to obsolescence sooner rather than later anyway. In fact, in the way of this major series, this volume makes a very good job of its task.

The usual division into thematic “parts’ used in...