Presents the life of the famous English playwright and discusses some of his notable works.

Without William Shakespeare, we wouldn’t have literary masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.

William Shakespeare lived at a remarkable time—a period we now recognize as the first phase of the Scientific Revolution. New ideas were transforming Western thought, the medieval was giving way to the modern, and the work of a few key figures hinted at the brave new world to come: the methodical and rational Galileo, the skeptical Montaigne, and—as Falk convincingly argues—Shakespeare, who observed human nature just as intently as the astronomers who studied the night sky. In The Science of Shakespeare, we meet a colorful cast of Renaissance thinkers, including Thomas Digges, who published the first English account of the "new astronomy" and lived in the same neighborhood as Shakespeare; Thomas Harriot—"England's Galileo"—who aimed a telescope at the night sky months ahead of his Italian counterpart; and Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, whose observatory-castle stood within sight of Elsinore, chosen by Shakespeare as the setting for Hamlet—and whose family crest happened to include the names "Rosencrans" and "Guildensteren." And then there's Galileo himself: As Falk shows, his telescopic observations may have influenced one of Shakespeare's final works. Dan Falk's The Science of Shakespeare explores the connections between the famous playwright and the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution—and how, together, they changed the world forever.

Eminent literary critic Alvin Kernan takes us back to the court performances of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, showing how the courtly setting influenced the bard's work. Kernan argues that Shakespeare was a great dramatist whose plays commented on political and social concerns of his patrons and who adjusted his own art to pander to court needs. 30 illustrations.

Man of the Millennium' he may be but William Shakespeare is a shadowy historical figures. His writings have been analysed exhaustively but much of his life remains a mystery. This controversial biography aims to redress the balance. To his contemporaries, Shakespeare was known not as a playwright but as an actor, yet this has been largely ignored or marginalised by most modern writers. here John Southworth overturns traditional images of the Bard and his work, arguing that Shakespeare cannot be separated from his profession as a player any more than he can be separated from his works. Only by approaching Shakespeare's life from this new angle can we hope to learn or understand anything new about him. Following Shakespeare's life as an actor as he learns his craft and begins work on his own plays, Southworth presents the Bard and his plays in their proper context for the first time. Groundbreaking, contentious and a work of deep scholarship and understanding, 'Shakespeare the Player' should change the way we think about the English language's greatest artist.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

By concentrating on a dozen of his best-known plays, and analysing their structural and theatrical elements as well as their distinctive language, inventive plotting and unique characters, this book demystifies Shakespeare for theatre lovers. It enables us to step behind the curtain to learn why Shakespeare is considered the greatest dramatist.

A cutting-edge and comprehensive reassessment of the theories, practices and archival evidence that shape editorial approaches to Shakespeare's texts.