Shakespeare was acutely aware of our intimate struggles with aging. His characters either prosper or suffer according to their relationship with maturity, and his sonnets eloquently explore time's ravaging effects. "Wrinkled deep in time" is how the queen describes herself in Antony and Cleopatra, and at the end of King Lear, there is a tragic sense that both the king and Gloucester have acquired a wisdom that they lacked at the start of the play. Even Juliet matures considerably before she drinks Friar Lawrence's potion, and Macbeth and his wife grow old from their murderous schemes. Remarkably, the subject of aging in Shakespeare has yet to be seriously addressed, though it informs his greatest works. Drawing on historical documents and the dramatist's own complex depictions, renowned Shakespearean scholar Maurice Charney launches a wholly original examination of aging in Shakespeare, identifying how the process provides either fulfillment or distress in conjunction with mental and physical decline.