Students of literature, drama, or the theater who are studying Shakespeare's plays in light of their historical setting are often hampered by a lack of visual materials to support their analyses.

This singular collection reproduces for these students and researchers more than 17,000 index cards citing materials in which illustrations of Shakespeare's plays have appeared. Compiled by W. Benfield Pressey, Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and Oratory at Dartmouth College, these citations span many years and languages, and represent all of Shakespeare's plays.

All entries in this index are organized chronologically by play, and by act and scene within each play for convenient access and reference. Researchers at either the undergraduate or graduate level as well as groups staging plays will find that these sources help them appreciate and study how Shakespearean productions looked to the audiences at the time. And theater students can assemble a complete pictorial history of Shakespearean set design, costumes, and staging, or discover design concepts adaptable to modern productions.

Professor Pressey originated this collection as a result of what he found to be a teaching need. In his introduction to the microfilm edition, he recalls, "...as a teacher, I found that my students did not sufficiently visualize Shakespeare as they read." This unique collection remedies that gap between words and images for the student of Shakespeare and his times.