These three volumes represent the best Shakespeare criticism of the last fifty years. 140 articles have been organised under three main headings with substantial introductory essays. The first volume, introduced by Stanley Wells, includes pieces on Shakespeare's life and times, the texts of his plays and their staging in the period; the second, introduced by Terence Hawkes, covers the many different schools and trends of literary criticism applied to Shakespeare since the Second World War; the third, introduced by Peter Holland, includes performance-centred articles on staging, theatres, film and acting. The essays are all reprinted from Shakespeare Survey, the yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production, selected and ordered by Catherine Alexander. For over half a century the world's leading editors and textual scholars, critics and theoreticians, actors and directors have written for Survey. Survey's outstanding strength has been the quality of its contributors and the accessible nature of its scholarship.