The book analyses the theories and practices of editors who worked on Shakespeare, but also on complete editions of a remarkable range of early modern writers, from the early nineteenth century through to the early twentieth century.

This book is a study of English conversion narratives between 1580 and 1660. Furthermore, by focusing on a comparatively early period in the history of the conversion narrative the book charts for the first time writers' experimentation and engagement with rhetorical theory before the genre's relative stabilization in the 1650s.