Tiffany Stern is a Lecturer in English Literature at Oxford University, and the Beaverbrook and Bouverie Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at University College, Oxford. She specialises in Shakespeare, theatre history from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, book history, and editing. Her publications include Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (OUP, 2000), Making Shakespeare (Routledge, 2004), and numerous articles and chapters exploring theatrical and editorial concerns of the early modern period. She has also edited the anonymous King Leir and Sheridan's The Rivals and is currently editing George Farquhar's Recruiting Officer, Brome's Jovial Crew, and Shakespeare's Merry Wives. Simon Palfrey is Lecturer in English at Oxford University and a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. He is the author of Late Shakespeare: a New World of Words(OUP, 1997; paperback, 2000), Doing Shakespeare (Arden, 2004), and articles on Kierkegaard and the ethics and phenomenology of drama.
...a groundbreaking new study...The consideration of characters and their textual construction is a revelation. ..The book is exactly as scrupulous and thorough as the subject deserves...For professional Shakespeareans in the theatre or the university, it is required reading. Tom Cornford, Around the Globe Rarely has so much new and exciting information about Shakespeare been gathered in a single study. The challenges of this book for how we conceive of, teach, write about and perform Shakespeare will surely be felt for years to come. Douglas Bruster, Review of English Studies this is a lucid and persuasive study that successfully infuses academic Shakespeare with the vibrancy and insecurity of live performance: Shakespeare's actors had to play their parts now, perilously in the present. Peter J. Smith, THES