I feel that I have spent half my career with one or another Pelican Shakespeare in my back pocket. Convenience, however, is the least important aspect of the new Pelican Shakespeare series. Here is an elegant and clear text for either the study or the rehearsal room, notes where you need them and the distinguished scholarship of the general editors, Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller who understand that these are plays for performance as well as great texts for contemplation.

The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series, which has sold more than four million copies, is now completely revised and repackaged.

Titus Andronicus is probably Shakespeare's first tragedy. Set in approximately the 4th century AD, the macabre plot concerns human sacrifice, torture, rape, mutilation,decapitation, cannibalism and murder. The fashionable theme of revenge is played out against the decadence of Imperial Rome in its decline with much violence and melodrama. Enormously popular with Elizabethan audiences, the play has languished since the reign of James I, but recent productions have commanded recognition of its merits. Conceived on a grand scale,Titus Andronicus has the seeds of greatness and presages the supreme tragedies of Shakespeare's maturity.