I am grateful to Lisa Hopkins and Andrew Hiscock, general editors of this series, for giving me the opportunity to edit this volume on a play I wrote about many years ago – a play that continues to ‘haunt’ me as much as the Duchess does Bosola. I also thank the staff at Continuum for their patience with and understanding of my obligations as department Chair, which invariably led to delays in the publication schedule. Most of all, I want to express my gratitude to all the contributors to this volume. Scattered across the globe, busy with their own commitments, they nonetheless responded promptly and graciously to my requests and suggestions. I can only conclude that they too are lovers of this extraordinary, enigmatic and endlessly fascinating play. In particular, Leah Marcus generously provided us with the proofs of her Arden edition of The Duchess of Malfi, published by the Arden Shakespeare, an imprint of A&C Black Publishers Ltd. We all benefited from her work on the text and from her Introduction, which overlaps slightly with her contribution to this volume.
As always, my deepest thanks to Keith, Julia and Stefan Lawson: ‘All discord without this circumference / Is only to be pitied and not feared’.