Shakespeare and London. Duncan Salkeld, ed. Oxford Shakespeare Topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. xvi + 200 pp. $69. - Shakespeare's London, 1613. David M. Bergeron. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. xii + 282 pp. $24.95

[...]the depiction of Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and remarriage to Anne Boleyn coincidentally anticipates the final major event of 1613 and Bergeron's study: the case of Frances Howard's divorce from Robert, second Earl of Essex, and remarriage to the King's favorite, Robert Carr, in the Overbury Affair. Snippets of masques, tilts, and pageants appear and reappear across the four chapters as the writers employed by the court shift their work to new audiences. [...]while Bergeron will occasionally delve into the literature itself, the book is primarily interested in situating well-known texts (such as The Tempest) within a network of lesser-studied works by Shakespeare's contemporaries. [...]as Salkeld's chapters on “People,” “Art/Authority,” and “Diversity” show, writing and artistic works were produced in and among the London underworld's negotiation with the city government as it sought to control marginalized and impoverished communities.