In the decade 1808-1818, Schlegel, Coleridge and Hazlitt produced some of the finest criticism on Shakespeare. This anthology brings together substantial selections from their work, together with contributions from other writers, including Goethe, Stendhal, Hugo and Keats. It unearths some unusual pieces, such as a dialogue between Byron and Shelley on the character of Hamlet, and includes pioneering approaches such as Malone's researches into the Elizabethan theatre and Anna Jameson's accounts of Shakespeare's female characters. Responses to the acting of Kean, Kemble and Mrs Siddons reveal a fertile relationship between the drama reviewing and literary criticism of the period.