The latest volume in this monumental reference series begins with Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries and ends with The Castle Spectre (1797) by Matthew Gregory Lewis, best known for the previous year’s classic gothic novel The Monk. Amnon Kabatchnik has one more century to cover, the 19th, and that volume is reportedly forthcoming. As before, each entry begins with a plot summary, essential to any theater manager considering a production, followed by stage history (plus film and TV where applicable), critical reception, author biography, and other notes of interest. Among the familiar titles covered are Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed With Kindness (1603), John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (c1613), Moliere’s Tartuffe (1664), John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), and Henry Fielding’s Tom Thumb (1730). First playwright to represent the United States in the series is William Dunlap with The Fatal Deception (1794).

For many readers, the Shakespeare coverage will be the highlight. Some early plays, including Hamlet, were covered in the previous volume (400 B.C. to 1600 A.D.), but the other major tragedies, plus some histories and comedies with criminous elements, are dealt with here. The performance histories (from the beginning into the 21st century) are of special interest. Take Richard II, not, one might think, among the Bard’s most popular histories. Though written in 1594, privately performed in 1595, and published in 1597, it had its first public performance at the Globe Theatre on February 7, 1601, “the day before the Earl of Essex’s rebellion, in an attempt to encourage plotters against Queen Elizabeth I.” Though Essex was executed following his failed revolt, Shakespeare and his company apparently escaped serious censure. Kabatchnik notes that “the next recorded performance was in the East India Company’s ship Dragonoff the coast of Sierra Leone in the autumn of 1607 (the versatile crew would also play Hamlet).” Its controversial political implications discouraged wide performance in the next couple of centuries, but major actors took on the starring role in the 19th (Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, Edmund Booth) and 20th centuries (John Gielgud, Maurice Evans, Alec Guinness, Michael Redgrave, Ian McKellan, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi).

This whole series belongs in any library concerned with theatrical history or crime fiction, and its technical ineligibility for the biographical/critical Edgar Award is unfortunate, to put it mildly.