Frankie Rubinstein
A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance.
London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1984. 0333343085 xxiii/334 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 6.75" x 9.75", is bound in red cloth, with stawmped gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Book is in fine condition, with solid binding, clean and bright pages. Volume is perserved in transparent plastic cover, with tear at top edge of front panel. This work offers a bibliography and an index to characters.
"One purpose of this dictionary is to identify the hundreds upon hundreds of still unnoted puns and to indicate their enrichment of the plays; to extend the Act of Partridge to cover those many acts usually ignored in textual footnotes -- the erotic practices of heterosexuals and homosexuals (including lesbians), perverts, castrates, and the impotent; to illustrate that the scatological puns appeared usually  in a context that was also sexaul bawdy, and that the ethnic puns were as sexually snide then as now...A second purpose is to reawaken us to the value of reading and hearing Shakespeare word by word, giving full weight to each one and asking why the line was so and not otherwise. We must visualise each thing, each action, each modifier; staging, props and gesture cannot do it for us."