Books of the past year include one, by M. M. Reese, which covers the whole of our field—life, times and stage—in a manner which seeks to “mediate” the conclusions of scholarship “in terms acceptable to ordinary men”. The author shows that he can do this lucidly, readably, and, except in the rather unnecessary chapter on the University Wits, without superficiality. Though taking most of his facts at second hand, he interprets them with skill and judgement. His sane balance in many controversial matters is shown especially in the biographical sections. Arguing the probability of Shakespeare’s grammar-school education, he reminds us of the lack of evidence for it; he reviews the theories about the “hidden” years without adding to them; a first-rate reconstruction of Shakespeare’s working life as playwright for an acting company ends with a sensitive recognition of how little as well as how much in his work this can explain. All the same, more than a little learning does not entirely avoid the dangers of relying upon secondary authorities: it cannot have been Peele himself who specified the three vials of blood and the sheep’s gather called for by the playhouse ‘plot’ of one of his plays, and the occurrence of variants in the First Folio does not show it to have been poorly printed by the standards of its day. Some slight doubts about the author’s security in textual matters come to a head when bad quartos are wrongly defined. Occasional statements which go beyond the evidence are made more dangerous by the confidence which the author’s usual scrupulousness is likely to inspire.