The freshly edited and annotated text comes with a full introduction and illustrative materials intended for student readers. The Spanish Tragedy was well known to sixteenth -century audiences and its central elements - a play-within-a-play and a ghost bent on revenge - are widely believed to have influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet. This volume includes a generous selection of supporting materials, among them Kyd's likely sources (Virgil, Jacques Yver and the anonymous "The Earl of Leicester Betrays His Own Servant"), Thomas Nashe's satiric criticism of Kyd, Michael de Montaigne and Francis Bacon on revenge, and "The Ballad of The Spanish Tragedy, " which suggests the play's initial reception. A selected bibliography is included.