The best known - and longest - of Harley Granville Barker's celebrated Prefaces to Shakespeare: some of the best practical guides to Shakespeare's work yet written. With a foreword by Richard Eyre.

In his Preface to Hamlet, Barker takes the reader through the play, quoting freely and commenting on the meaning and impact of each moment. In doing so he combines his experience as a director and actor with his scholarly knowledge of the Elizabethan stage.

'I regard Granville Barker not only as the first modern English director but as the most influential' Richard Eyre

'A deep and penetrating intelligence illuminates his observations, and they remain permanently relevant' Peter Brook