Between 1599 and 1601, no fewer than five anthologies appeared in print with extracts from Shakespeare's works. Some featured whole poems, while others chose short passages from his poems and plays, gathered alongside lines on similar topics by his rivals and contemporaries. Appearing midway through his career, these anthologies marked a critical moment in Shakespeare's life. They testify to the reputation he had established as a poet and playwright by the end of the sixteenth century. In ...

'O mother, mother! What have you done?' Failing harvests, fragile supply chains, food shortages, a spike in the cost of living; military insurgency and counter-insurgency locked in bloody stalemate; a political system on the brink of collapse, unable to respond to democratic demands, and unwilling to secure its citizens' basic material needs. This is Coriolanus: the last of Shakespeare's tragedies, and perhaps his timeliest. The action takes place in the early day...