This volume presents a winning selection of the very best essays from the long and distinguished career of Stanley Wells, one of the most well-known and respected Shakespeare scholars in the world. Its chapters are divided into themed sections, on Shakespearian influences, particular works, theatre, and text.

The ten lectures presented here were given consecutively at the British Academy's annual Shakespeare Lecture over the years 1980-89. This lecture series has been going since 1911 with this volume being the fourth 'collection' of essays.

Lectures: M. Hart: The SERC Experiment in Science-Based Archaeology; M. Woods: Plato's Division of the Soul; Lord Carver: Strategy in the Twentieth Century; C. J. Becker: Farms and Villages in Denmark from the Late Bronze Age to the Viking Period; E. M. Jope: Celtic Art: Expressiveness and Communication; S. Wells: Tales from Shakespeare; C. Peacocke: Understanding Logical Constants: A Realist's Account; I. Fenlon: The Arts of Celebration in Renaissance Venice; G. D. N. Worswick: Industrial Change and Unemployment; D. R. Karlin: Whitman: The Civil War Poems; The Lord MacKay of Clashfern: Can Judges Change the Law?; D. Dilks: 'We Must Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst': the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and Hitler's Germany, 1937-39; D. Attridge: Poetry Unbound? Observations on Free Verse. Memoirs: Richard Ithamar Aaron (1901-1987); Denis Midgley Arnold (1926-1986); Sydney George Checkland (1916-1986); Christopher Robert Cheney (1906-1987); Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973); Richard Meredith Jackson (1903-1986); Lilian Hamilton Jeffrey (1915-1986); Nicholas Kaldor (1908-1986); Thomas Parry (1904-1985); Lionel Charles Robbins (1898-1984); George Hugh Nicholas Seton-Watson (1916-1984); Jean Joseph Seznec (1905-1983); Robert Shackleton (1919-1986); Eric Gardner Turner (1911-1983).