Two Gentlemen of Verona is commonly agreed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, and probably his first play. A comedy built around the confusions of doubling, cross - dressing and identity, it is also a play about the ideal of male friendship and what happens to those friendships when men fall in love.William Carroll's engaging Introduction focuses on the traditions and sources that stand behind the play and explores Shakespeare's unique and bold treatment of them. Special attention is given to the strong female figure of Julia and the controversial final scene.

In their lively and engaging edition of this sometimes neglected early play, Cox and Rasmussen make a strong claim for it as a remarkable work, revealing a confidence and sureness that very few earlier plays can rival. They show how the young Shakespeare, working closely from his chronicle sources, nevertheless freely shaped his complex material to make it both theatrically effective and poetically innovative. The resulting work creates, in Queen Margaret, one of Shakespeare's strongest female roles and is the source of the popular view of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick as kingmaker'....