ONE need hardly hear of Professor Kittredge's one-volume Shakespeare to be assured that it is a complete and a scholarly work. The publishers have worked with the editor, patiently and skillfully, to reproduce in precise the tremendous knowledge of text, idiom, and literary values which Professor Kittredge owns.

The book's size is 8 1-2" by 6 1-4" by 2 1-4". It is clearly printed on good paper with the Droeshout copperplate portrait of Shakespeare from the First Folio as frontispiece. The 37 known plays of Shakespeare are included, with "The Two Noble Kinsmen" by Shakespeare and Fletcher, and all of the sonnets and other poems.

As introduction to cach of the plays and poems the editor has set down in a little space a great wealth of condensed information on sources, problems of character and interpretation, and facts about the text. The twelve generations of Harvard men who sat at his feet in old "English 2" will recognize in delight many of the master's rapier thrusts.

Merchant of Venice: ". . .The character of Shylock fascinates critics and has lured them into endless mazes of debate. One thing is clear, however: "The Merchant of Venice" is no anti-Semitic document; Shakespeare was not attacking the Jewish people when he gave Shylock the villain's role. If so, he was attaching the Moors in "Titus Andronicus", the Spaniards in "Much Ado", the Italians in "Cymbeline", the Viennese in "Measure for Measure", the Danes in "Hamlet", the Britons in "King Lear", the Scots in "Macbeth", and the English in "Richard the Third"."

Coriolanus: " . . .The fable is of oriental origin. It made its way somehow into Roman history of the legendary period and is attached to Menenius by Livy and Plutarch. Camden tells it in his "Remaines" (1605). Of course Shakespeare could read Livy."

Titus Andronicus: " . . .Distaste for horrors ought not to make one regardless of the skillful construction of the play, of its dramatic power, and of the magnificence of many portical passages. With all its faults, it is far beyond the abilities of either Peele or Greene. Shakespeare must have the credit as well as the discredit of its authorship."

Macbeth: ". . .Thus the tragedy of Macbeth is inevitably fatalistic, but Shakespeare attempts no solution of the problem of free will and predestination. It is not his office to make a contribution to philosophy or theology . . ."

This edition is not equipped with full textual notes. Professor Kittredge is now preparing his annotated volume-by-volume "Shakespeare". There is a glossary included, however, of 42 triple columned pages, which is doubtless as exhaustive and as thorough as any such labor ever attempted. The complete works are here for the lover of Shakespeare in a most scrupulously workman-like and most enjoyable form.