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'In popular imagination Romeo and Juliet stands out as a tower among Shakespeare's plays, thanks to its secure place in school curricula, its famous speeches and scenes, its rich production history, and the frequency with which it has been turned into operas, ballets, and films. Lees-Jeffries' new introduction adjusts this splendid isolation by platting the play's connections round about: with romantic poems of the 1590s, with scripts that Shakespeare was writing at the same time, with actors who likely first played the roles, with changing ideas about marriage in the period, with dueling practices, with sexuality and body-language, and with reimaginings of the play across more than four centuries and in multiple media. Lees-Jeffries offers not only a sympathetic and wide-ranging introduction to Romeo and Juliet but a concise history of performance practices and social history in Shakespeare's time.' Bruce R. Smith, University of Southern California