Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Tom Stoppard was catapulted into the front ranks of modem playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. Its subsequent run in New York brought it the same enthusiastic acclaim, and the play has since been performed numerous times in the major theatrical centers of the world. It has won top honors for play and playwright in a poll of London Theater critics, and in its printed form it was chosen one of the “Notable Books of 1967” by the American Library Association.

The twenty-eight essays of this collection, first published in 1962, are the work of distinguished British, Canadian, and American scholars. The essays range widely over the field of Elizabethan drama, concentrating attention on Shakespeare and Marlowe but not neglecting earlier dramatists such as Kyd and Greene or later ones such as Heywood and Massinger. Among the general topics treated are the staging of the interludes, intrigue in Elizabethan tragedy, and Jacobean stage pastoralism. This title will be of interest to students of English literature.