This generously annotated updated edition of Coriolanus provides a thorough reconsideration ofShakespeare’s remarkable, and probably his last, tragedy. A substantial introduction situates the playwithin its contemporary social and political contexts – dearth, riots, the struggle over authoritybetween James I and his first parliament, the travails of Essex and Ralegh – and pays particularattention to Shakespeare’s shaping of his primary source in Plutarch’s Lives. It presents a freshaccount of how the protagonist’s personal tragedy evolves within Shakespeare’s most searchingexploration of the political life of a community. The edition is alert throughout to the play’s theatricalpotential, while the stage history also attends to the politics of performance from the 1680s onwards,including European productions following the Second World War. A new introductory section byBridget Escolme covers recent productions of Coriolanus, and criticism of the last ten years, withparticular focus on identity, gender and the politics of the play.