This book brings together theatre historians to identify and exemplify a variety of productive new approaches to the investigation of plays, players, playwrights, playhouses and other aspects of theatre in the long eighteenth century. Their inquiries range from stage censorship and anti-theatricalism to the political resonances of adultery comedy.

PAULA R. BACKSCHEIDER is Stevens Eminent Scholar at Auburn University, USA HELEN BURKE is Professor of English at Florida State University, USA MITA CHOUDHURY is Assistant Professor of English at Purdue University Calumet, USA MICHAEL DOBSON is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK LISA A. FREEMAN is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA SUSAN CANNON HARRIS is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, USA ROBERT D. HUME is Evan Pugh Professor of English Literature at Penn State University, USA MATTHEW J. KINSERVIK is Associate Professor of English at the University of Delaware, USA JUDITH MILHOUS is Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, USA SHEARER WEST is Professor of Art History and Head of the School of Historical Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK