A dictionary covering the plots and characters of Shakespeare's plays, as well as information on Elizabethan times, culture, and personalities. Includes essays on Shakespeare's poetry, and on the theater and play production of his day.

First series of the Twentieth-Century American Dramatists.

Contains biographical sketches of playwrights whose careers had reached a professional height before the 1939-1945 war, or whose lives had ended by that time.

Embraces the work of writers working in theatrical traditions ranging from the classic well-made play to the most radical avant-garde pieces. This variety is indicative of the fact that this period is one of the most important in British drama, comparable to the late-Elizabethan/Jacobean and post-Restoration eras in terms of the quantity and quality of new work and surpassing both of them in the sheer variety of theatrical offerings.