This edition presents the greater plays in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar. Verbal and textual criticism has been included only so far as may serve to help the student in his appreciation of the poetry.

Questions of date and literary history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, but the larger s.p.a.ce has been devoted to the interpretative rather than to the matter-of-fact order of scholarship.

aesthetic judgments are never final, but the editors have attempted to suggest points of view from which the a.n.a.lysis of dramatic motive and dramatic character may be profitably undertaken.

In the Notes likewise, though it is hoped that unfamiliar expressions and allusions have been adequately explained, it has been thought more important to consider the dramatic value of each scene, and the part that it plays in relation to the whole.

Each volume has a Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index.

Appendices are added upon points of interest that could not be treated in the Introduction or the Notes. The text is based on that of the Globe edition. The following plays are ready:--

HAMLET.--Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A.

MACBETH.--Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford.

JULIUS CaeSAR.--Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.--Edited by H. L. Withers, B.A., Oxford.

TWELFTH NIGHT.--Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford.

AS YOU LIKE IT.--Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Edinburgh.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.--Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A.

CYMBELINE.--Edited by A. J. Wyatt, M.A., Cambridge.

THE TEMPEST.--Edited by F. S. Boas, M.A., Oxford.

KING JOHN.--Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge.

RICHARD II.--Edited by C. H. Herford, L.H.D., Cambridge.

RICHARD III.--Edited by George Macdonald, M.A., Oxford.

HENRY V.--Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge.

HENRY VIII.--Edited by D. Nichol Smith, M.A., Edinburgh.

CORIOLa.n.u.s.--Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.--Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Oxford.

KING LEAR.--Edited by D. Nichol Smith, M.A., Edinburgh.