This book considers the impact and influence of Shakespeare on writing of the eighteenth century, and also how eighteenth-century Shakespeare scholarship influenced how we read Shakespeare today.

The most influential English actor of the eighteenth century, David Garrick, could hail Shakespeare as 'the god of our idolatry', yet perform an adaptation of King Lear with a happy ending, add a dying speech to Macbeth, and remove the puns from Romeo and Juliet. Garrick's friend Samuel Johnson thought of Shakespeare as 'above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature'. Voltaire thought he was a sublime genius without taste. The Bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, meanwhile, could be found arguing with Johnson's biographer James Boswell over whether Shakespeare or Milton was the greater poet.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-201) and index.