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Acknowledgments Looking back, I am surprised that someone who grew up in a household in which status-objects were regarded with a certain haughty derision should have written a book about household stuff. My mother, Reva Korda, to whom this book is dedicated, dismissively relegated such stuff to the category of tchotchkes. She had no interest in fashion, loathed shopping, and positively detested housework. Having grown up very poor in the Bronx during the Depression, she read voraciously and dreamed of becoming a writer and an English professor. She loved the theater, and Shakespeare in particular. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Hunter College in 1947,she answered an ad for "Phi BetaKappa English Majors" placed by Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, who ran the ad department at Gimbels. There, my mother found quite accidentally and much to her own surprise that she had a particular genius for writing advertising copy. Discovered by advertising legend David Ogilvy, she went on to become a legend in her own right as the first female creative head of Ogilvy & Mather. Her pioneering campaigns for Maxwell House Coffee ("Good to the Last Drop" and the "Percolator"), Imperial Margarine ("Fit for a King"), Schweppes ("Schweppervescence"), and many others helped form the cultural imaginary of her time. My mother always maintained an ironic detachment and skeptical wit about the commodity culture that she herself had helped shape. She would never have used the word "culture" to describe this world of goods. That word was reserved for "high" art, in which she was deeply invested (she married an artist), and in which she was determined to immerse her children , reading us nightly the works of Shakespeare and Dickens. My mother viewed high and low culture as entirely separate spheres and, sadly, looked down upon her own achievements in the latter from the lofty vantage of the former. Perhaps, then, this unlikely book on Shakespearean "stuff" emerges from my desire to explore the connections between these two spheres, and thereby, to pay tribute to my mother's achievements as significant cultural contributions. Tragically, since I began this book, this brilliant, articulate, 2/4 Acknowledgments and erudite woman has succumbed to the devastating and incurable disease of multiple sclerosis, which has robbed her of the ability to speak, write, or read. I can only hope that the opaque, unreachable interior world she now inhabits will be able to grasp the spirit of this tribute, and pledge that any royalties I may receive from this book will be donated to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of America. My work has benefited from the insight of many generous readers, interlocutors, and mentors. In the latter category, I am especially indebted to the work of Joel Fineman, my late, dear friend, to John Guillory, my teacher, advisor, and friend, to Harris Friedberg and Christina Crosby, my tremendously supportive and brilliant colleagues, and to Jean Howard, whose intellectual generosity seems to know no bounds. Other mentors whose work in the field of early modern studies has been particularly influential on my own and who have been supportive of my work include Catherine Belsey, Judith Brown, Dympna Callaghan, Walter Cohen, Frances Dolan, Lynn Enterline, Margaret Ferguson, Patricia Fumerton, Stephen Greenblatt, Kim Hall, Richard Halpern, Ann Rosalind Jones, Coppelia Kahn, Naomi Liebler, Karen Newman, Michael Neill, Susan O'Malley, Lena Cowen Orlin, Gail Kern Paster, Scott Shershow, Peter Stallybrass, Wendy Wall, and Linda Woodbridge. Friends, colleagues, and students who have read all or parts of this book, and whose ideas have helped shape my thinking on its subject matter, include Rebecca Bach, Mary Bly, Pam Brown, Julie Crawford, Krystian Czerniecki, Mario DiGangi, Will Fisher, Juana Green, Dave Hawkes, Genevieve Love, Tina Malcolmson, Sharon Marcus, Fiona McNeill, Simon Morgan-Russell, Laurie Nussdorfer, Peter Parolin, Gary Shaw, Gay Smith, Betsy Traub, Ramie Targoff, Elliott Trice, Richard Vann, Michael Wyatt, and Paul Yachnin.I am above all immeasurably grateful for the intellectual generosity , love and support of my brilliant friend and collaborator on another project, Jonathan Gil Harris. My editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press, Jerome Singerman, has been unceasingly supportive, as has his wonderful assistant, Samantha Foster. I would also like to thank managing editor Alison Anderson for her patient guidance through the editorial process. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my readers at the University of Pennsylvania Press, Jean Howard and John Michael Archer, and to anonymous readers at Shakespeare Quarterly and at Palgrave, for their generous comments. I am grateful to Shakespeare Quarterly...

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