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Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 822.33
EAN: 9780060740221
ISBN: 0060740221
Label: Eminent Lives
Manufacturer: Eminent Lives
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: November 01, 2007
Publisher: Eminent Lives
Release Date: October 23, 2007
Studio: Eminent Lives
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Editorial Review: William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
Bryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, from today's most respected academics to eccentrics like Delia Bacon, an American who developed a firm but unsubstantiated conviction that her namesake, Francis Bacon, was the true author of Shakespeare's plays. Emulating the style of his famous travelogues, Bryson records episodes in his research, including a visit to a bunkerlike room in Washington, D.C., where the world's largest collection of First Folios is housed.
Bryson celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases ("vanish into thin air," "foregone conclusion," "one fell swoop") that even today have common currency. His Shakespeare is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Not Your Daddy's Shakespeare
This is one of the easiest, breeziest, most charming bios of Shakespeare you'll ever read. And it is one of the worst. Don't bother reading it. Bryson candidly confesses to the absolute lack of information about William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon, then plunges ahead, not letting the lack of facts slow him down. A quick example: on p. 90, he states "we know nothing at all about the relationship, if any, that existed between Shakespeare and Southampton." But one page later, he states outright ... Read More
Rating:  - Bright and breezy read.
Certainly, we may ask, "Do we really need another book on Shakespeare?" Well, the answer may not be that we need one but we can use one. This is a great book for the general audience that has enjoyed Shakespeare on the page or on the stage. It answers many of those what about questions, insofar as facts and historical data will allow. In many ways it is a good book for the other end of the shelf from "Will in the World." Bryson does not give us what ifs but rather known facts. Speculation can be fun, ... Read More
Rating:  - Good but a bit dry in parts
This review is about the audiobook version, which surprisingly reveals Bill Bryson to have a weird Anglo-American accent. Perhaps his living in England so long has done this, as there is little hint of any midwest twang.
On to the book. For those looking for the humorous version of Bryson you won't get it here, although he peppers this book with various wry observations. Bryson starts at the beginning, where Shakespeare's family came from, what the times were like, and how a provincial ... Read More
Rating: - Pretty good but not great
This book is exactly what you would expect of Mr. Bryson: a well-informed, humorous and well-written account of Wm. Shakespeare's life.
The problem is, as the author points out in the foreward, scarcely anything is known about Shakespeare's life, so the book of necessity resorts to broad speculation and focuses largely on persons connected to Shakespeare, rather than on the man himself. The paucity of useful information about Shakespeare likely explains the book's size, which is quite small. ... Read More
Rating: - Cool analysis of William Shakespeare
This is one volume in the series "Eminent Lives." After having read this book, I am interested in exploring this series further.
William Shakespeare, of course, was a great playwright, whether of comedy or tragedy, and a fine poet as well. Bill Bryson, the author of this slender volume, notes how little we actually know of Shakespeare, when he says (Page 7): ". . .all we know about Shakespeare is contained within a few scanty facts: that he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, produced a family there, ... Read More
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