Shakespeare's rise to prominence was by no means inevitable. While he was popular in his lifetime, the number of new editions and revivals of his plays declined over the following decades. Emma Depledge uses the methodologies of book and theatre history to provide a re-assessment of the reputation and dissemination of Shakespeare during the Interregnum and Restoration. She demonstrates the crucial role of the Exclusion Crisis (1678–1682), a political crisis over the royal succession, as a foundational moment in Shakespeare's canonisation. The period saw a sudden surge of theatrical alterations and a significantly increased rate of new editions and stage revivals. In the wake of the Exclusion Crisis, Shakespeare's plays were made available on a scale not witnessed since the early seventeenth century, thus reversing what might otherwise have been a permanent disappearance of his drama from canonical familiarity and firmly establishing Shakespeare's work in the national cultural imagination.

Vols. for 1921-1969 include annual bibliography, called 1921-1955, American bibliography; 1956-1963, Annual bibliography; 1964-1968, MLA international bibliography.

This collection of essays centres on Double Falsehood, Lewis Theobald’s 1727 adaptation of the “lost” play of Cardenio, possibly co-authored by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. In a departure from most scholarship to date, the contributors fold Double Falsehood back into the milieu for which it was created rather than searching for traces of Shakespeare in the text. Robert D. Hume’s knowledge of theatre history permits a fresh take on the forgery question as well as the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Diana Solomon’s understanding of eighteenth-century rape culture and Jean I. Marsden’s command of contemporary adaptation practices both emphasise the play’s immediate social and theatrical contexts. And, finally, Deborah C. Payne’s familiarity with the eighteenth-century stage allows for a reconsideration of Double Falsehood as integral to a debate between Theobald, Alexander Pope, and John Gay over the future of the English drama.