A major new edition by a leading feminist scholar An enduringly popular, and much performed play Comprehensive introduction with 20 illustrations Appendix gives full facsimile of the play's "sister" play The Taming of A Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew is unique among Shakespeare's plays and is a perennial and compelling success in the theatre. Its reception is marked, however, by ongoing polarized debate over the meaning and worth of the play. This edition disengages Shakespeare's exuberant and disturbing marital farce from the tangled history of its reception. It views the two sixteenth-century Shrew plays as textually independent but theatrically interdependent and so includes the full text of The Taming of A Shrew in an appendix. While the Introduction and Commentary focus on the critical and theatrical debate surrounding the play, the original and comprehensive editing of the playtext makes available a 'different' Shrew, more open to the reader's interpretation than is usually the case. Barbara Hodgdon is a distinguished feminist scholar whose reading of the play offers a stimulating array of ideas and questions about this enduringly popular yet challenging comedy.

"'a spry, supple introduction to the play...Hodgson's performance history is particularly impressive: closely aligned to the breadth of critical readings, but suggesting the comedy's challenges and even, its charms.'" - Plays International (February 2011)

"'Barbara Hodgdon is a distinguished feminist scholar whose reading of the play offers a stimulating array of ideas and questions about this enduringly popular yet challenging comedy.'" - Sardines Magazine (Autumn 2010)