Reading Room - Comedies

C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedies (1959) – one of the best critical books on Shakespeare ever written

Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965) – a slim work of supreme power

R. W. Maslen, Shakespeare and Comedy (2005) – sets the Elizabethan comedies in the context of both theatrical traditions and anti-stage polemic

Shakespeare's Comedies , edited by Emma Smith (2004) – useful set of interpretative essays

There are hundreds more fine books on Shakespeare, but anyone who reads The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works from cover to cover and then devours a reasonable proportion of the above will have earned the right to consider themselves an exceptionally highly informed Shakespearean.