The essays in this collection -all concerned with texts and authors from the Early Modern Period of English literature- focus on questions relating to metamorphosis, selffashioning, and power. Several of the essays make use of concepts made fashionable by Stephen Greenblatt through his book Renaissance Self-Fashioning, yet without adopting his historicist or postmodernist assumptions. The main emphasis of the collection is on Shakespeare, but also several other writers are discussed, including Webster and Milton as well as less well-known writers such as Matthew Parker and Thomas St Nicholas.