Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
by Bill Bryson
List Price:
Our Price: $4.00
You Save: $9.99 (71%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.40 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Bill BrysonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10
ISBN: 0061673692
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
Book Review: Crafted, concise, and fun to read
Summary: 5 Stars
Bill Bryson's concise biography of Shakespeare is brilliantly written, humorously insightful, and entirely delightful. The prose is a well-crafted and playful presentation of the dozen odd facts known about Shakespeare and many of the suppositions, inferences, and wild speculations about the man and his work. This Shakespeare primer can be easily understood by any high-school level reader and no prior knowledge about Shakespeare is required--Bryson even helpfully informs the reader that "William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably" (p. 196) the author of Shakespeare's plays and poetry, a fact that is apparently not self-evident.
Bryson has written several books including the prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything. The book under review is provided as a volume in the "Eminent Lives" series of concise biographies by varying authors and as such conforms to an imposed restriction on length. With a candid honesty that permeates his offering, Bryson notes that the world didn't really need another Shakespeare biography but that the "Eminent Lives" series did. Bryson is straightforward in admitting that no groundbreaking research is presented, but rather the biography gathers the known facts, the supposed facts, and much pithy innuendo into a single engaging and accessible overview. Bryson's strength, then, lies not so much in his Shakespearean expertise but rather in his obvious ability to turn a phrase.
As expected, the book presents facts about Shakespeare's life, work, and environment. The book reads much as one would expect and holds no surprise of construction, methodology, or presentation. The book is divided into chapters that establish what is known and what is generally supposed about several periods in Shakespeare's life and his environment. The book mentions most plays, several long poems, and a few sonnets; it does not present substantive literary criticism on any of the works but does briefly examine some issues of attribution. Bryson makes some attempt to place Shakespeare's materials into a general chronological order but does not tackle the thornier issues. The book's somewhat unbalanced biography is similar to all Shakespearean biography insofar as virtually nothing is actually known about the man whereas very much has been inferred. Bryson carefully notes fine distinctions between the two. For example, Shakespeare's death is presented mostly as an interpretation of his will, as that document has been discovered and can be analyzed objectively. The final chapter of the book examines the occasional academic notion that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's material, and reviews some of the leading alternative theories and their attendant problems.
While nothing in the biography is new or even particularly innovative, it is nevertheless an invigorating review of extant data. Bryson brings a fresh and exciting voice to material that elsewhere often is stale in presentation. A mix of bedrock facts, such as Shakespeare's date of birth--"By tradition it is agreed to be April 23, Saint George's Day" (p. 24) in 1564--stand alongside humorous observations: "The Droeshout engraving [of Shakespeare]...is an arrestingly--we might almost say magnificently-mediocre piece of work" (p. 4). Bryson throws compellingly banal facts into the mix, too--"Shakespeare's works contain 138,198 commas, 26,794 colons, and 15,785 question marks" (p. 19). What emerges is a lovingly rendered biography of an obviously favorite subject. Those familiar with Shakespeare's life and times will find the information recast in an enjoyable way, while those unfamiliar with the topic will find the information intelligible and quite accessible. One of the book's particular strengths is the development of a sense of time and place surrounding Shakespeare as an individual. For example, Shakespeare's multi-year absence from the stage is explained by the closure of all London theaters due to plague.
Bryson's book includes nine named and enumerated chapters and a selected bibliography. It runs to 199 pages and has only a handful of footnotes. Bryson attributes several items within the book and occasionally textually refers to his sources to establish academic authority on some point. In summary, Bryson is an endlessly entertaining writer and Shakespeare - The World as Stage is an outstanding read for anyone who enjoys Shakespearean theater, good writing, or both.
Summary of Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
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. 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.
Authors Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Authors Books
Bloomsbury Recalledby Quentin Bell
Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.38
Price in other shops:
William Tyndale: A Biographyby David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish Americaby Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics)by Ernst Jünger
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Lifeby C.S. Lewis
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1995-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.86
Price in other shops:
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library)by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops:
Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98by George Dawson, Richard Glaubman
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops:
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)by Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madman CDby Simon Winchester
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-10-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Alexander Hamilton: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper; Published: 2003-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
In a Sunburned Countryby Bill Bryson
Broadway; Published: 2001-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops:
Notes from a Small Islandby Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1997-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops:
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Awayby Bill Bryson
Broadway; Published: 2000-06-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.93
Price in other shops:
Bill Bryson's African Diaryby Bill Bryson
Broadway; Published: 2002-12-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.97
Price in other shops:
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United Statesby Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1996-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.65
Price in other shops:
The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Wayby Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1990; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.47
Price in other shops:
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europeby Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2001; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Societyby Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2011-11-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.55
Price in other shops:
A Short History of Nearly Everythingby Bill Bryson
Random House, Inc.; Broadway; Published: 2004-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.24
Price in other shops:
At Home: A Short History of Private Lifeby Bill Bryson
Anchor; Published: 2011-10-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.38
Price in other shops: