The number of books written about Shakespeare runs into the thousands, and nobody can be expected to have read them all. This is necessarily a highly selective bibliography, with an emphasis on books that deal with political aspects of Shakespeare’s plays. It is designed to take advantage of the fruitful convergence in recent decades between literary scholars and political theorists working on Shakespeare. We hope to call the attention of literary scholars to the work done by political theorists on Shakespeare and to call the attention of political theorists to some of the best work done by literary scholars on Shakespeare, much of which is relevant to a political understanding of his plays. We also hope to alert political theorists to some aspects of conventional Shakespeare scholarship that they ought to take into account in their analyses, especially the issue of the status of the texts of Shakespeare’s plays.

This bibliography is divided into eight sections:

1) General works on Shakespeare as political thinker; many of them are collections of essays that deal with a wide range of plays; mostly written by professors in political science departments

2) General works on Shakespeare, relevant to the subject of Shakespeare and politics; mostly written by professors in literature departments

3) A selection of writings about individual plays

4) A selection of writings about the nature of tragedy

5) A selection of writings about the Renaissance as background for understanding Shakespeare’s plays

6) A selection of works of political philosophy relevant to understanding Shakespeare’s plays

7) A selection of works that provide a general background for understanding Shakespeare’s plays

8) A brief discussion of editorial problems and various editions of Shakespeare’s plays