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William Shakespeare: An Illustrated Biography

William Shakespeare: An Illustrated Biography

by Anthony Holden (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2002

    $3.25
Synopsis

Not for a generation, since the late Anthony Burgess's SHAKESPEARE (1970), has there been anything approaching a popular, mainstream biography of the greatest and most celebrated writer the world has known. Yet Shakespeare's life was as colourful, varied and dramatic as his works: the Warwickshire country boy who 'disappeared' for seven years before fetching up in London as an apprentice actor...whose fellow players could scarcely keep up with the plays he turned out for them...who rapidly became a favourite at the court of Elizabeth I...and returned to Stratford a prosperous 'gentleman', proud to realise his father's dream of a family coat of arms, before his death at 52. 1999 saw the completion of London's biggest new tourist attraction: an international Shakespeare Exhibition Centre alongside the rebuilt Globe Theatre and this splendidly illustrated biography of the greatest of all dramatists and poets will be a highly desirable commemorative volume.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 320
 Edition: abridged edition
 Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 04 Apr 2002
ISBN 10: 0316851590
ISBN 13: 9780316851596

Media Reviews
'Anthony Holden certainly does not pull his punches in his choice of biographical subjects. Having already taken on the Prince of Wales in Charles: A Biography, Olivier and Tchaikovsky, this time Holden has gone for no less than the Bard himself, with his action-packed biography, William Shakespeare. Dismissing claims that there is nothing left to say about Shakespeare, Holden's bold study argues that, on the contrary, there is a great deal to say about Shakespeare: The archives are in fact rich with traces of the Bard as husband, father, actor, dramatist, poet and Stratford lad made good. Holden also argues that if each generation recreates Shakespeare in its own image , then we need a new version of the Bard in the 21st century. As a result he obliges with a racy, incident-packed account of the glovemaker's son from Stratford who rose to subsequent immortality via the stage of Elizabethan London. As well as poring over the established evidence, Holden makes some controversial, but intriguing claims. Not only was Shakespeare a covert Catholic, who spent his so-called lost years as a budding actor in Catholic households in Lancashire under the name of Shakeshafte , but he also suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, experienced a nervous breakdown, fathered an illegitimate son via his middle- aged landlady and sailed close to the political wind with what Holden sees as his residual Catholic and republican instincts . It's all very entertaining, if at timess lightly out on an interpretative limb, but this is a lively and refreshing approach to the Bard as an Elizabethan man behaving badly, which may not be for all time, but is pretty resonant for our times.' -Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
Author Bio
Anthony Holden is the acclaimed biographer of three previous diverse subjects - Tchaikovsky, Laurence Olivier and Charles, Prince of Wales. A well-known journalist and broadcaster his translations (with Amanda Holden) of Mozart and Rossini opera appear at the ENO.