How original was Shakespeare and how was Shakespeare original? This book sets about answering these questions by putting them in historical context and investigating how the dramatist worked with his sources: plays, poems, chronicles, and prose romances. Shakespeare’s Originality unlocks its topic by showing through a series of case studies that range across the output—from the mature comedies to the great tragedies, from Richard III to The Tempest—what can be learned about the artistry of the plays and the nature of early modern authorship by thinking about these sources (including newly identified ones) after several decades of neglect. Discussion is enriched by such matters as Elizabethan ruffs and feathers, actors’ footwork, chronicle history, adaptations, notable performances, debts to classical tragedy, scepticism, magic and science, the agricultural revolution, and ecological catastrophe. This work is intended to be accessible to the general reader as well as a resource for students.