Just as they are today, the plays and poems of William Shakespeare were studied by schoolchildren in the 19th century. And just as today, students one hundred years ago were confused by the archaic words, unfamiliar sentence constructions and obscure allusions of Shakespeare's English. Ever the inventive headmaster, Abbott wrote this textbook for the edification of the students at his own school. The differences between present-day English and the English of the Elizabethan era are explained and illustrated, and a glossary of unfamiliar words is included. Abbott did more than just write a book for his own students—he wrote one of the most famous studies of Elizabethan English, one that is still used as a textbook to this day.
