This book, the first to trace revenge tragedy's evolving dialogue with early modern law, draws on changing laws of evidence, food riots, piracy, and debates over royal prerogative. By taking the genre's legal potential seriously, it opens up the radical critique embedded in the revenge tragedies of Kyd, Shakespeare, Marston, Chettle and Middleton.

Derek Dunne has taught at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Shakespeare's Globe, London, and Queen's University, Belfast. He has published on the mathematics of revenge, trial by jury in the early modern period, and the representation of women on trial. Derek's research interests span Shakespeare's contemporary dramatists, early modern Inns of Court culture, cony-catching pamphlets and counterfeiting.