This edition would not have been possible without the patient care and good humour of Brett Hirsch. The Arts and Humanities Research Board generously funded its initial stages of production. Martin Wiggins is owed substantial gratitude for his scholarly expertise, enthusiasm and patience. Members of the Shakespeare Instituteʼs Renaissance Drama Research Group have questioned, supported and guided its production, even in testing the edition as a functional script in staged readings. John Jowett and Henry Woudhuysen offered incisive comments, for which, grateful thanks.

Further staged readings were made possible by faculty funding from Oxford Brookes University; thanks to director Brian Woolland for sensitive and revealing workshops on the text with talented, enquiring actors: Sarah Edwardson, Jack Fortescue, Robert Lister, Lachlan McCall, Jennifer McEvoy, Alan Morrissey, Neil Smye, Joseph Thompson, Hannah Watkins, and Anita Wright. A successful staged reading using this text was directed by James Wallace as part of Shakespeareʼs Globeʼs ‘Read not Deadʼ series. Also thanks to colleagues past and present for their encouragement and support: Richard Allen Cave, Elizabeth Schafer, Helen Ostovich, Julie Sanders, Lucy Munro, Thomas Betteridge and Katharine Craik.

Shakespeare Institute librarians James Shaw and Kate Welch dealt patiently and helpfully with my requests. Thanks also goes to staff at the following libraries, whose assistance made my visits to see the 1599 Quarto such a pleasure: The British Library, The Folger Shakespeare Library, New York Public Library, and Kingʼs College Library, Cambridge.

Roderick Saxey and Clare Smout provided assistance with Greek and Latin, and Andy Kesson offered comments on the character of Dowsecer. All remaining errors are mine alone. To my family and friends: thank you. For Jamie Douglass, who makes all things possible.