It has been established by textual specialists, and is now becoming widely accepted, that Shakespeare revised many of his plays, including some of the most celebrated. But how were the great tragedies altered and with what effect? John Jones looks at the implications of Shakespeare's revisions for the reader and spectator alike and shows the playwright getting to grips with the problems of characterization and scene formation in such plays as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. This is vivid, enthralling stuff. Jones carries his argument down, as he puts it, to the very tip of Shakespeare's quill pen. In characteristically lucid and accessible prose, he assesses recent textual scholarship on Shakespeare's revisions and illuminates the artistic impact of the revised texts and their importance for our understanding of each play's moral and metaphysical foundations. Shakespeare at Work brings together English literature's greatest writer and one of its most distinguished critics. The result is a book that will prove a revelation - essential and also fascinating reading for scholars, students, and Shakespeare enthusiasts alike.

His close scrutiny of passages is often perceptive, as in his comments on Shakespeare's habit of slipping in negatives that may cause lines to say the opposite of what he seems to have intended to mean. ... Jones writes well, and he has judicious comments on the use of short lines, on repetitions, and on hendiadys in Hamlet.
A refined critical sensitivity is here generously and communicatively at work. * Times Literary Supplement *
For its combination of sprightly detective work and Shakespearian insight I greatly admireed John Jones's Shakespeare at Work. * Frank Kermode, The Sunday Times *
Much in this book is remarkable. By itself, Jones's treatment of the old debate about the relationships among the earliest editions of Hamlet makes this book worth its price. I find the book filled with striking insights. Jones's work is productive, engaging, and lucid. * Erick Kelemen, University of Delaware, Sixteenth Century Journal XXVIII/1 (1997) *