The indispensable introduction to the indispensable writer. . . . Garber s is the most exhilarating seminar room you ll ever enter. Newsweek The best one-volume critical guide to the plays. . . . Stimulating and informative. San Jose Mercury News An enraptured ceremony of adoration. . . . Ambitious and thorough. . . . This is a useful book [and] a source of elucidation. Newsday [Garber s] introduction is an exemplary account of what is known about Shakespeare and how his work has been read and regarded through the centuries, while the individual essays display scrupulous and subtle close reading. The New Yorker