ABSTRACT
Among the most generally interesting and particularly provocative books upon Shakespeare since (say) 1925 are Dover Wilson’s magistral edition of Shakespeare’s Works, H. GranvilleBarker’s brilliant Prefaces, G. Wilson Knight’s profound studies, Hugh Kingsmill’s thoughtful The Return of William Shakespeare, Chambers’s authoritative William Shakespeare, and, in another order, Kenneth Muir & Sean O’Loughlin’s The Voyage to Illyria and Hesketh Pearson’s popular, wind-fresh A Life of Shakespeare. (This selection is not intended to belittle such important books as those by Edgar I. Fripp and Leslie Hotson.) None of them,1
however, attempts a serious study of the main subject treated in the ensuing pages, whether in the sketch that is this essay or in the glossary, which, self-contained, deals with many themes that, even at this date, could not be handled in an essay designed to meet the needs of students of literature and of
lovers of Shakespeare. This is not an in camera monograph for professional sexologists.
