These volumes gather together a body of critical sources on the major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

In 1600, after a decade spent establishing himself as the most popular and successful playwright of his generation, Shakespeare found himself having to compete with new and younger writers. At the same time he had to face the challenge of new theatres designed for a better class of audience, which looked as though they might cream off some of his most valued customers. Difficult as it may be to believe that Shakespeare faced such commercial and artistic pressures, common sense and hard historical fact tell us that he did not work in isolation from the theatrical world in which he was so spectacular a success. In "Shakespeare and the Rival Playwrights" David Farley-Hills gives an interpretation of seven of Shakespeare's plays from 1600 to 1606 in the light of pressures exerted by his major stage rivals. He argues that Shakespeare responded to the problem with a double strategy; attempting to compete with the new fashions of the covered theatres with plays such as "Troilus and Cressida", "All's Well That Ends Well", and "Measure for Measure"; and rivalling the work of the open theatres with the tragedies "Hamlet", "Othello", and "King Lear".

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary repsonses to a writer's work, enabling student and researcher to read the material themselves.