Describes the house where Shakespeare was born and everyday life at that time.

Anyone who has paid the entry fee to visit Shakespeare's Birthplace on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon—and there are some 700,000 a year who do so—might be forgiven for taking the authenticity of the building for granted. The house, as the official guidebooks state, was purchased by Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, in two stages in 1556 and 1575, and William was born and brought up there. The street itself might have changed through the centuries—it is now largely populated by gift and tea shops—but it is easy to imagine little Will playing in the garden of this ancient structure, sitting in the inglenook in the kitchen, or reaching up to turn the Gothic handles on the weathered doors. In Shakespeare's Shrine Julia Thomas reveals just how fully the Birthplace that we visit today is a creation of the nineteenth century. Two hundred years after Shakespeare's death, the run-down house on Henley Street was home to a butcher shop and a pub. Saved from the threat of an ignominious sale to P. T. Barnum, it was purchased for the English nation in 1847 and given the picturesque half-timbered façade first seen in a fanciful 1769 engraving of the building. A perfect confluence of nationalism, nostalgia, and the easy access afforded by rail travel turned the house in which the Bard first drew breath into a major tourist attraction, one artifact in a sea of Shakespeare handkerchiefs, eggcups, and door-knockers. It was clear to Victorians on pilgrimage to Stratford just who Shakespeare was, how he lived, and to whom he belonged, Thomas writes, and the answers were inseparable from Victorian notions of class, domesticity, and national identity. In Shakespeare's Shrine she has written a richly documented and witty account of how both the Bard and the Warwickshire market town of his birth were turned into enduring symbols of British heritage—and of just how closely contemporary visitors to Stratford are following in the footsteps of their Victorian predecessors.

Inspired by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s collection, a beautifully produced and illustrated miscellany of fascinating facts, definitions, and quotes relating to the world’s most famous playwright. A Shakespeare Motley is a delightful cabinet of Shakespearean curiosities, arranged in alphabetical order, that will inform, enthuse, intrigue, and amuse anyone who wants to know more about the life and work of the world’s best-known author. Drawing unusual connections, this ingenious guide will show you what Hamlet’s Ophelia has to do with The Tempest and Twelfth Night, and how a stage direction speaks to Elizabethan treatment of bears. With entries ranging from “apothecary” to “zephyr,” this succinct book is full of captivating details illuminating all corners of Shakespeare’s world. The volume is illustrated throughout with images taken exclusively from the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Readers will quickly gain a vivid, authentic sense of Shakespearean times, from the fascination of falconry to the elegance of eglantine and the resonances of ring-giving. Accessible yet also full of expert insight and knowledge, this is a wonderful window on the ideas and influences that may have informed Shakespeare’s work. A perfect gift for theater lovers, anglophiles, and all those fascinated by the life and work of the playwright.

The tragedy of Romeo and juliet - the greatest love story ever.

This original, witty, illustrated study offers the first analytical history of the rise and development of literary tourism in nineteenth-century Britain, associated with authors from Shakespeare, Gray, Keats, Burns and Scott, the Brontë sisters, and Thomas Hardy. Invaluable for the student of travel and literature of the nineteenth century.

Critical and historical notes accompany Shakespeare's play about a shipwrecked duke who learns to command the spirits.