List of illustrations; 1. Looking like a child - or - Titus: the comedy Carol Chillington Rutter; 2. Comedy and Epyllion in post-Reformation England Dympna Callaghan; 3. (Peter) Quince: love potions, carpenter's coigns and Athenian weddings Patricia Parker; 4. 'When everything seems double': Peter Quince, the other playwright in A Midsummer Night's Dream A. B. Taylor; 5. Cultural materialism and intertextuality: the limits of queer reading in A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen Alan Sinfield; 6. As you liken it: simile in the wilderness Robert N. Watson; 7. Infinite jest: the comedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Ann Thompson; 8. Othello and the end of comedy Stephen Orgel; 9. Shakespeare as a joke: the English comic tradition, A Midsummer Night's Dream and amateur performance Michael Dobson; 10. Falstaff's belly, Bertie's kilt, Rosalind's legs: Shakespeare and the Victorian prince Adrian Poole; 11. The sixth act: Shakespeare after Joyce Maud Ellmann; 12. The return of Prospero's wife: mother figures in The Tempest's afterlife Sarah Annes Brown; 13. Directing Shakespeare's comedies: in conversation with Peter Holland Declan Donnellan; 14. 'To show our simple skill': scripts and performances in Shakespearian comedy Michael Cordner; 15. John Shakespeare's 'spiritual testament': a reappraisal Robert Bearman; 16. Shakespeare as a force for good Peter Holbrook; 17. Timon of Athens and Jacobean politics Andrew Hadfield; 18. Man, woman and beast in Timon's Athens Andreas Höfele; 19. Rough magic: northern broadsides at work at play Carol Chillington Rutter; 20. Shakespeare performances in England, 2002 Michael Dobson; 21. Professional Shakespeare productions in the British Isles, January-December 2001 James Shaw; The Year's Contributions to Shakespeare Studies: 22. Critical studies reviewed by Ruth Morse; 23. Shakespeare's life, times and stage reviewed by Leslie Thomson; 24. Editions and textual studies reviewed by Eric Rasmussen; Books received; Index.