What Happens in Hamlet was published in 1935 by the Shakespearean scholar and educator John Dover Wilson. Its scene-by-scene account of the events of Shakespeare’s play inspired generations of scholars and actors. Such was its popularity that a second edition was published in 1937, and a third in 1951. The latter reached its nineteenth reprint in 2003.
Wilson described how the work came to be written in the “epistle dedicatory” to Walter Wilson Greg. This is a vivid account of how, one evening in 1917 whilst on a train to Sunderland, Wilson was “converted” (Milestones, 1969, 156) to Shakespeare from his previous interest in sixteenth-century history. Amongst the letters gathered beforehand to read on the …
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Citation: Owens, Rebekah . "What Happens in Hamlet". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 April 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20324, accessed 25 November 2024.]
