"As You Like It", Shakespeare's most light-hearted comedy, is also one of the best-loved and most performed of all his plays.

Probably written in 1599 or 1600, it was listed in the Stationers' Register in 1600 as having been "stayed" from publication, and was not printed until the First Folio of 1623.

Its first recorded performance was in 1740. The introduction to this new edition discusses both the known history of the play's composition, dating and publication and the possible reasons for the delay in publication.

It also deals with Shakespeare's sources, and his handling of the theme of love, and discusses in detail the fortunes of the play in performance.

Popular from the mid-18th century onwards, it has had innumerable 20th century productions, in Britain, America and elsewhere, many of which are discussed and illustrated. Unsurprisingly, as the play contains the longest - and one of the most delightful - of Shakespeare's female roles in the comedies, its performance history is marked by notable Rosalinds, from Hannah Pritchard and Margaret Woffington (giving rival performances in 1741), to Helen Faucit, Peggy Ashcroft, Vanessa Redgrave, Ronald Pickup (in an all-male production in 1967), Eileen Atkins, and many others.

The text is annotated to explain allusions and difficult passages and to illuminate puns and "stage business" and there are appendices on "wit", and on the music to the many songs in the play.