Andrew John Gurr (born December 23, 1936) is a contemporary literary scholar who specializes in William Shakespeare and English Renaissance theatre.

Born in Leicester, Gurr was raised in New Zealand, and educated at the University of Auckland and at Cambridge University. He has taught at the Universities of Wellington, Leeds, and Nairobi (1959-73); at the latter institution he was also head of his department. He taught at the University of Reading before his retirement.

Gurr has co-written a 1981 study of Katherine Mansfield (with Claire Hanson) and two books on African literature; but he is best known for a series of works on Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and the theatre of his historical era, that are recognized and utilized as essential references for the study of English Renaissance drama. He has authored a wide range of articles for both scholarly journals and general-interest periodicals, and has edited several of Shakespeare's plays and several plays of the John Fletcher canon. He was chief academic advisor to the project to rebuild the Globe Theatre. For ten years (1988-98), Gurr was the editor of the Modern Language Review.

Books by Andrew Gurr

The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642 (1970)

Black Aesthetics, with Pio Zimiru (1973)

Writers in East Africa, with Angus Calder (1974)

Playgoing in Shakespeare's London (1987)

Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe, with John Orrell (1989)

William Shakespeare: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Successful Writer of All Time (1995)

The Shakspearean Playing Companies (1996)

Staging in Shakespeare's Theatres, with Mariko Ichikawa (2000)

The Shakespeare Company (2004)

External Link

Gurr on Sonnet 145.