Books by Catherine Richardson

This book considers a range of printed and documentary evidence, the majority previously unpublished, for the way ordinary individuals thought about their houses and households; and it then explores how writers of domestic tragedies engaged those attitudes to shape their representations of domesticity.

What is the significance of Shylock's ring in The Merchant of Venice? How does Shakespeare create Gertrude's closet in Hamlet? Why does Ariel prepare a banquet in The Tempest? In order to answer these questions, Shakespeare and Material Culture explores performance from the perspective of the material conditions of staging.