On the Date, Sources and Design of Shakespeare's The Tempest

Trade Paperback 261 pages. Condition Very Good Issued with NO Dust Jacket. Presumed First edition 2013. Beautiful illustrated wraps show off this Clean, tight, square copy with no marks, highlights or bookplates. Book Well kept and carefully stored in unread condition. Slight shelf wear with some damage to corners. Not an ex-library, book club or remainder copy. This book challenges a longstanding and deeply ingrained belief in Shakespearean studies that The Tempest, long supposed to be Shakespeare's last play, was not written until 1611. In the course of investigating this proposition, which has rarely been questioned and has not received the critical inquiry it deserves, a number of subsidiary and closely related interpretative puzzles have come sharply into focus. These include the plays sources of New World imagery; its festival symbolism and structure; its relationship to William Strachey's True Reportory account of the 1609 Bermuda wreck of the Sea Venture (not published until 1625) and the tangled history of how and why scholars have for so long misunderstood these matters.…