Exquisite... enthralling... This short, modest and brilliant book does more than many more grandiose tomes to renew the reader's fascination with the plays, and the theatre-goer's wonder at the extraordinary and diverse sensations locked up inside the First Folio. It should be required reading at all universities and drama clubs." --Robert McCrum, "Guardian" "Contains within its scintillating reflections the essence of all that Peter Brook has learned over a lifetime. Whoever imagined that a book about Shakespeare could also be such fun?" --John Heilpern, "Wall Street Journal" "This volume positively seethes and sparkles with ideas... provides not only acute insights into the texts, but intriguing details of performance history, and a few morsels of grand theatrical gossip." --Stuart Kelly, "Scotsman" "If you want a gift for an actor, look no further than this educative, engrossing, entertaining book." -"The Stage" In "The Quality of Mercy," one of the world's most revered theatre directors reflects on a fascinating variety of Shakespearean topics. In this sequence of essays--all but one published here for the first time--Peter Brook debates such questions as who was the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays, why Shakespeare is never out of date, and how actors should approach Shakespeare's verse. He also revisits some of the plays which he has directed with notable brilliance, such as "King Lear," "Titus Andronicus" and, of course, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Taken as a whole,