The Comedy of Errors

First staged in the early 1590s, this farce is Shakespeare's shortest play. Egeon of Syracuse is condemned in Ephesus for landing there during a trade ban; he tells how a shipwreck years earlier divided his wife, himself, and two pairs of identical twin infants. One Antipholus and his servant Dromio have grown up in Ephesus; their twins arrive from Syracuse the same day. Wives, goldsmiths, and a courtesan mistake one pair for the other, so dinners, chains, and beatings go to the wrong men. The action stays inside one day and one city. The play is a comedy of mistaken identity, not a romance of courtly love.

Quarter bound in green Nigerian goatskin leather with marbled papers. Oxford University Press commentary volume. Green solander box with leather label.