• This introduction includes the latest research on the playing landscape of Elizabethan England and the domestic culture of the period, drawing on fresh archival material in order better to understand the appeal of Shakespeare's play for its earliest audiences as well as rationale for its inclusion in the repertory
• Builds on earlier studies of domesticity in relation to the play to broaden these issues out to questions of race and sexuality that new scholarship has shown to be relevant to plays across the canon
• Provides in-depth insight into Shakespeare's world while indicating the flexibility of his plays for readers and performers today
• Combines fresh, new scholarship from leading researchers with authoritative texts and comprehensive notes in order to offer readers a complete guide to Shakespeare
• Uses the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work
• Presented in modern spelling and punctuation with accessible critical apparatus to best aid understanding of the plays and poems

    
'Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English.'
   
The Merry Wives of Windsor is the only Shakespeare play named entirely after female characters and his only comedy set in England. These features underscore some of its most immediately appealing qualities — its contemporary realism; its depiction of everyday life; its interest in status and gender; and the language and physicality of its comedy. This edition's introduction focuses on these elements of Merry Wives, setting out their historical contexts but also thinking about what they offer audiences and readers today. It addresses the place of the play within Shakespeare's career and canon and the enduringly popular figure of Falstaff, before thinking about its generic peculiarities as a mixture of "city comedy" and domestic comedy. The edition gives readers a rich breadth of historical context and real-life examples through which to understand and appreciate the text. It also addresses Merry Wives's popular and scholarly reception, to give students, performers, and readers an array of topics, angles, and approaches with which to engage with one of the canon's most lively and life-like plays.
   
The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare's works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare's work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give readers the best resources to help understand and enjoy Shakespeare's work.