Shakespeare and Manuscript Drama : Cambridge University Press : 9781107119680 : 1107119685 : 23 Jun 2016 : How did Shakespeare write his plays and how were they revised during their passage to the stage? James Purkis answers these questions through a fresh examination of often overlooked evidence provided by manuscripts used in early modern playhouses. Considering collaboration and theatre practice, this book explores manuscript plays by Anthony Munday, Thomas Middleton, and Thomas Heywood to establish new accounts of theatrical revision that challenge formerly dominant ideas in Shakespearean textual studies. The volume also reappraises Shakespeare's supposed part in the Sir Thomas More manuscript by analysing the palaeographic, orthographic, and stylistic arguments for Shakespeare's authorship of three of the document's pages. Offering a new account of manuscript writing that avoids conventional narrative forms, Purkis argues for a Shakespeare fully participant in a manuscript's colla