Leah S. Marcus is Edwin Mims Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of "Childhood and Cultural Despair", "The Politics of Mirth", "Puzzling Shakespeare", and "Unediting the Renaissance". She has edited two volumes of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I (with Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose), a Norton Critical Edition of "The Merchant of Venice", and an Arden Early Modern Drama text of John Webster s "The Duchess of Malfi".