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Walter Montagu, The Shepherd's Paradise, edited by Sarah Poynting. Oxford: Malone Society, 1997.
Since Sophie Tomlinson's ground-breaking article 'She that plays the King; the threat of the actress in Caroline culture' appeared in 1992, Walter Montagu's The Shepherd's Paradise has proved a source of fascination and, occassionally, frustration for scholars of Early Modern drama. A theatrical transgression of multiple proportions, as far as its English authence was concerned, the play was performed at court by Queen Henrietta Maria and her ladies, some of whom were cross-cast as male characters. At the present time, when, for example, the Shakespeare Association of America's annual conference in April 2000 heard several participants propose the decentering of Early Modern London's public playhouse as the benchmark of dramatic popularity and excellence, the availability of this most culturally significant...