The Merry Wives of Windsor is the only Shakespeare play named entirely after female characters and his only comedy set in England. These features underscore some of its most immediately appealing qualities — its contemporary realism; its depiction of everyday life; its interest in status and gender; and the language and physicality of its comedy. This edition's introduction focuses on these elements of Merry Wives, setting out their historical contexts but also thinking about what they offer audiences and readers today. It addresses the place of the play within Shakespeare's career and canon and the enduringly popular figure of Falstaff, before thinking about its generic peculiarities as a mixture of "city comedy" and domestic comedy.