In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cymbeline was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, but in modern times it has received comparatively little editorial attention. This new edition differs from its predecessors by foregrounding the elements of romance, tragicomedy and Jacobean stagecraft which together shape the play; it also acknowledges the postmodern indeterminacy of the play's key moments. Martin Butler has broken with the legacy of the sentimental Victorian reading of the heroine, Innogen, which still exerts some hold on production and interpretation today, and has given greater space than his predecessors to the politics of 1610, especially to questions of British union and nationhood.
