Audiences have always delighted in the robust comedy and verbal inventiveness of The Taming of the Shrew. It has survived many adaptations ranging from, probably, the play printed in 1594 as The Taming of the Shrew through several eighteenth-century versions to modern-dress productions and transformations into ballet, musical, film, and opera.

Introducing this new edition, H.J. Oliver pays attention to the play`s theatrical virtues while also providing a deeply considered study of its textual problems, structural complexities, and interpretive challenges.