Criminal Shakespeares examines a range of subjects across time, from true-crime narratives of Shakespeare's day to the lives of sex-workers in the 16th century to news reports of 19th-century train robbers, as well as the ethical implications of showcasing Shakespeare in incarcerated classrooms. By considering representations of crime across eras, this collection revisits conversations about cultural power with an eye towards genre and the destabilization in our contemporary moment.

This rich and varied collection offers a series of fresh and inventive perspectives on three distinct but interrelated topics: the ways in which Shakespeare and other early modern dramatists depict criminals and crimes; the ways in which Shakespeare plays have been used in detective fiction; and the use of Shakespeare in prison education programmes. It is a pleasure to read such a wide-ranging set of essays and collectively they shed light on both early modern drama and the cultural uses that have been made of it.
-Lisa Hopkins , Professor Emerita, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

Criminal Shakespeares examines a range of subjects across time, from true-crime narratives of Shakespeare's day to the lives of sex-workers in the 16th century to news reports of 19th-century train robbers, as well as the ethical implications of showcasing Shakespeare in incarcerated classrooms. By considering representations of crime across eras, this collection revisits conversations about cultural power with an eye towards genre and the destabilization in our contemporary moment.

John S. Garrison is an Independent Scholar. His most recent books are The Pleasures of Memory in Shakespeare's Sonnets (2024) and Red Hot + Blue (2024). Among other honors, he is a two-time recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and he was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2021.

Vanessa L. Rapatz  is Associate Professor of English at Ball State University, USA. Her first book is  Convents and Novices in Early Modern English Dramatic Works  (2020). She has published on topics including religion in the early modern marketplace and pedagogical approaches to Margaret Cavendish, and recently co-authored a chapter with Marianne Montgomery for  Shakespeare, Race, and Anglophone Popular Culture (2026).

Kyle Pivetti is Professor of English at Norwich University, USA. He is co-author, with John Garrison, of Shakespeare at Peace (2018) and co-editor of the Spotlight on Shakespeare series, which examines present day issues through the study of Shakespeare. His research focuses on memory, political identity, and adaptation.