"Childhood in Shakespeare's Plays" challenges the notion that Shakespeare, like other Elizabethans, regarded children as small adults. The author shows how the playwright's myriad references to childhood give an additional dimension to his adult figures. Providing the first detailed analysis of the child characters in "Richard III, King John, Macbeth," and "The Winter's Tale," this book proves that Shakespeare did not depict children as unnaturally precocious or sentimentally innocent.