First published in 1937

This study argues that the plays of Shakespeare must be studied by comparison with each other and not as separate entities; that they must be related to one another, to the poems and to the Sonnets; that each individual play acquires a deeper significance from its setting in the corpus. Muir and O'Loughlin's critical analysis takes place against the personality of Shakespeare, asserting that despite all their diversities a single mind and a single hand dominate them and that they are the outcome of one man's critical and emotional reactions to life.