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Nov 14, 2006 | ISBN 9781400075980 Buy
Apr 21, 2010 | ISBN 9780307490827 Buy
Nov 01, 2005 | 1152 Minutes Buy
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Nov 14, 2006 | ISBN 9781400075980
Apr 21, 2010 | ISBN 9780307490827
Nov 01, 2005 | ISBN 9780739323779
1152 Minutes
A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF THE YEARDrawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literary biographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, Peter Ackroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare–and brings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. With characteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us in sixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape–the industry, the animals, even the flowers–that would appear in Shakespeare’s plays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood and the fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor and writer. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constant reviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details with profound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd has produced an altogether engaging masterpiece.
This is the big one from Peter Ackroyd — and a worthy companion to London: The Biography.Only Peter Ackroyd can combine readable narrative and unique observation with a sharp eye for the fascinating fact. His method is to position Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, he not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare’s life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background.Some snippets: Shakespeare was secretly a Roman Catholic; the witches in Macbeth were not hags but nymphs played by boys; the “best” bed was for guests which was why he bequeathed his wife his “second best” bed (the matrimonial bed in which he probably died); “ham acting” derives from the strutting walk which showed off the ham-strings; an actor called “Will” played female parts — could it have been Shakespeare himself? And, the strongest bond in the plays is between father and daughter, perhaps reflecting Shakespeare’s own family life.
Peter Ackroyd is the author of London: The Biography, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination, Shakespeare: The Biography, and Thames: The Biography. He has written acclaimed biographies of T. S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Blake, Sir Thomas More, and… More about Peter Ackroyd
“Demystifies the man and the artist. . . . Expertly evokes the townscape and landscape in and around Stratford, and the corresponding mindscape that vividly merges the urban and the rustic.” –The New York Times“William Shakespeare’s London comes to life with remarkable immediacy and clarity. . . . Ackroyd’s research is impressive.”–San Francisco Chronicle“Ackroyd provides the sights and sounds (and smells) of Stratford and London until you’d swear Shakespeare was right at your elbow, sipping ale.”–The Philadelphia Inquirer “Captures the thrill of London and of a theater emerging, in a ‘hard and disenchanted age,’ to replace the church as the center of communal spectacle.”–The Wall Street Journal“Creates a tapestry of Elizabethan London so rich that you feel you’ve been there.” –Independent on Sunday
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