'The annotation is consistently thoughtful and well judged, giving plenty of precise help with lexical and syntactical problems, and offering valuable verbal and cultural analogues from contemporary literature' 'No edition of these difficult and controversial poems will command agreement at all points, but this must now be the edition of first resort' Paul Hammond, Review of English Studies 'sharpens our focus on the documentary record of the Sonnets, and gives the best scholarly account yet of some of its words.' Alastair Fowler, Times Literary Supplement "The new edition...edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones, is the clearest, most complete and up-to-date there is. She is the first editor for general readers not to mumble when dealing with the homoerotic aspect. Under her meticulous direction, the sequence opens out like a magical garden, its beauties enhanced, its mysterious prospects illuminated." Duncan Fallowell, The Independent It is Duncan-Joness intention as scholar and critic to confront the issue of sexuality which Kerrigan and other editors have consistently side-stepped...Hers is an edition which uniquely makes the Sonnets issue from the bodys moods as well as the minds. Tom Paulin, London Review of Books This new edition, handsome, crisp in annotation, and rich in historical detail, shows that the Sonnets are effectively Shakespeares lifes work...Its most radical claim is not the familiar one that the poems are homosexual, but that Shakespeare authorised their publication. Evening Standard