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William Shakespeare LP

by Bill Bryson

3.70 · rating details · 5,761 ratings · 987 reviews

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, f

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Paperback, 288 pages

Published November 13th 2007 by HarperLuxe (first published January 1st 2007)

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Apr 19, 2008

James rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: shakespearean-era

This is a delightful little romp through Elizabethan and Jacobean England. It’s witty, in typical Bryson style, and it’s filled with obscure facts about England during Shakespeare’s time. Sometimes you’ll just laugh out loud.

Bryson uses lots of ink to tell the reader what Shakespeare was not. Apparently, fans, scribblers and even scholars have spent so much effort in conjecture about Shakespeare because so little factual evidence of his life exists outside of his plays. Bryson thoro...more

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Jun 21, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it

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Recommends it for: people who want to read a book which will teach them nothing in a fun and informative way

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: bookcrossers and the big general Bill Bryson fuzzy seal of approval

Shelves: 1001-books, bookcrossing-books, history, read-in-2010

Well, that was a quick and easy read, very pleasant too thank you Mr Bryson. After reading this book I have learned loads about Shakespeare - NOT! Having being forced to study him for A-Level English and worship at the alter of Shakespeare like a good student I was also suprised how little is known about him. My best memory of learning about Shakespeare was being asked to write an essay on the use of natural symbolism in "A Winters Tale". Being a slightly cocky and beligerent teenager ...more

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Mar 13, 2008

Jason Pettus rated it

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(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

No matter where on the planet you're from, it seems that there is at least one figure from the early Renaissance period (1400-1600 AD) who's had a huge and profound impact on your society's culture ever since: here in the English-speaking world, for example, that would be playwright and p...more(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

No matter where on the planet you're from, it seems that there is at least one figure from the early Renaissance period (1400-1600 AD) who's had a huge and profound impact on your society's culture ever since: here in the English-speaking world, for example, that would be playwright and poet William Shakespeare, and in fact it's guessed that a huge majority of all new novels and movies coming out in English these days are based or inspired in one way or another on something from "The Bard"s old works. But that's the ultimate irony about Shakespeare; that although he is one of the only Elizabethan playwrights in history to have almost all his works preserved and reproduced over the ages (a main factor behind him being as influential as he now is), hardly any facts about the man himself exist, and in fact apart from his creative writing you would scarcely even know he was a physical human who actually once lived. Over the centuries, then, it has led to wild speculation about Shakespeare's life on the part of thousands, and an entire wing of academic study about the man so in the center of all Western artistic thought.

So for those like me who hardly know anything about the subject, Bill Bryson's new book Shakespeare: The World as Stage is going to be a godsend; it is a tight, funny 200-page overview of what exactly we factually know about the man and what we don't, peppered with a lot of anecdotes about the various crackpots over the years who have gotten obsessed with the question. And in fact this is the entire reason for the book to exist in the first place, is to give a short and tidy overview of a famous person's life; it is in fact the latest installment of James Atlas' "Eminent Lives" series, where for years he's been asking intriguing writers in other fields to pen short accessible works about various famous thinkers in history. For example, for those who didn't know, Bryson himself is mostly known in the publishing world for extremely sharp, funny and bitter travelogues; and here he puts that style to good use, taking us from one interesting historical and academic site to the next, as he with us unravels the mystery of this playwright we know so little about.

In fact, that's about the only big drawback to this book as well, if you want to look at it that way; that a 200-page manuscript simply isn't enough to fully get into the mysteries behind Shakespeare and his work, and that the main enjoyment Bryson's book contains is with all the astounding trivia-style facts he rattles off throughout. (Did you know that there are only fourteen words in existence actually written in Shakespeare's hand? That of 3,000 plays written in the Elizabethan Era, we only have printed copies of 200 of them, with nearly 40 of them being from Shakespeare himself? That his collected work contains 884,647 words, 15,785 question marks, and 10 instances of the term "dunghill?") As far as I'm concerned, though, that's what's to like about this book, not dislike; it's no scholarly treatise by any means, but Bryson's Shakespeare is definitely a pleasant little unintimidating ladder into the endless underground cavern which is Shakespearean study. And given that other titles in this series deal with such other fascinating characters from history as Thomas Jefferson, Muhammad, and Machiavelli, I'm also looking forward to reading more.

Out of 10: 9.2 (less)

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Nov 20, 2007

Elizabeth rated it

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Shelves: 2007, non-fiction, in-by-of-england, bio-memoir-diaries-letters, history, in-theater, elizabethan-my-dear, reviewed

There's a saying that someone with a Liberal Arts education can speak well on many subjects, for about five minutes. Bill Bryson's Shakespeare was written for the liberal arts student in all of us. It's a very clever, and not poorly researched, analysis of what is known, and what is not, about William Shakespeare. And since it's Bryson, it's an egaging and easy read. No one else would note that many of the proponents of other people having written Shakespeare's plays were named Looney, Batty, an...more

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Apr 13, 2009

Martine rated it

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Shelves: biography, british, non-fiction

I love Bill Bryson. The man can take any subject and make it interesting, simply because he has this unfailing flair for adding details which make you grin. He does so to great effect in Shakespeare, his two-hundred-page biography of the man affectionately known as the Bard, which will delight Shakespeare aficionados as well as people who know virtually nothing about Stratford's most famous export product, such as myself.

Two hundred pages is not much for a biography of the world's g...moreI love Bill Bryson. The man can take any subject and make it interesting, simply because he has this unfailing flair for adding details which make you grin. He does so to great effect in Shakespeare, his two-hundred-page biography of the man affectionately known as the Bard, which will delight Shakespeare aficionados as well as people who know virtually nothing about Stratford's most famous export product, such as myself.

Two hundred pages is not much for a biography of the world's greatest playwright, but it's enough, because, as Bryson keeps reminding us, preciously little is known about Shakespeare. Bryson himself doesn't really add to the knowledge available on Shakespeare; he has no great discoveries up his sleeve. Basically, what he does is tell us what others have written about Shakespeare, only to tear their theories a new arsehole in a few short, memorable observations that will probably stay with you better than the theories themselves. It's an entertaining approach, which is particularly successful in the final chapter, where Bryson tackles several authors' attempts to prove that the works associated with Shakespeare were not actually written by Shakespeare. On top of pointing out fatal flaws in the various authors' reasoning (often in a single sentence), Bryson observes with great relish that three of the many, many people who have come up with outlandish theories on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays were called Silliman, Battey and Looney. I love details like that, which more serious scholars would be too polite to point out. Bryson takes them and runs with them, making this not just an informative, well-researched book, but a very entertaining one.

Shakespeare could have done with some more depth -- a little more information on the plays and their possible inspirations and interpretations. It could also have done with some thorough proof-reading. There are times, especially in the first half of the book, when Bryson loses himself in tangents on Queen Elizabeth and life in sixteenth-century England, some of which are just a tad too random and general for the subject. However, just when you find yourself wondering what all this information has to do with Shakespeare, Bryson gets back on track and comes up with some more interesting observations on the Bard and his times, plus some witty asides to make you forgive his rambling. As a result, the book is a bit uneven, but there is no denying it's a pleasant read on a rainy day, which will likely whet your appetite for some more serious Shakespeare scholarship. It definitely did that for me. Anyone got any recommendations?(less)

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Feb 11, 2011

Jeanette rated it

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Shelves: history, nonfiction, biography-memoir

Shakespeare's biography is sketchy, and ever thus it shall remain. This little book represents Bill Bryson's attempt to collect what scant information exists, and to debunk a few spurious claims. I can't say I know much more about Sweet Will now than I did before reading the book, but Bryson is not to blame. People didn't reliably keep records 400 years ago. There were no standardized spellings for English words, so a lot of what was written down is indecipherable. Furthermore, no one antici...moreShakespeare's biography is sketchy, and ever thus it shall remain. This little book represents Bill Bryson's attempt to collect what scant information exists, and to debunk a few spurious claims. I can't say I know much more about Sweet Will now than I did before reading the book, but Bryson is not to blame. People didn't reliably keep records 400 years ago. There were no standardized spellings for English words, so a lot of what was written down is indecipherable. Furthermore, no one anticipated Shakespeare's enduring popularity, so they weren't clamoring to write his biography while he was still alive. In fact, "playwriting was not an esteemed profession, and its practice, however accomplished, gained one little critical respect."

It's a wonder Will's works survived at all. If not for the dedicated efforts of John Heminges and Henry Condell in compiling the First Folio, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays would probably have been lost to us. Imagine our world without Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, and a dozen others. It's our good fortune that Heminges and Condell weren't procrastinators. Both men were dead by 1630, only seven years after the First Folio was published.

Bryson succeeds admirably in providing a context for Shakespeare's life and works. He describes what was happening in England throughout The Bard's lifetime, and how those events and attitudes might have shaped his choices and influenced his writing. For instance, the issue of Queen Elizabeth's succession was a national preoccupation for much of Shakespeare's life. It's no surprise, then, that one quarter of his plays deal with questions of royal succession.

Don't be put off by my three-star rating. I'm not enough of a snob to think of 3 stars as a "low" rating. It means "I liked it." Nothing more, nothing less. I've always found English history to be rather dry, but I'm glad I read the book. It will add a new layer of subtext to my future reading of Shakespeare's works. Just knowing that audience members were sometimes allowed to sit on the stage during a performance alters my perspective. How distracting that must have been for the actors! Imagine allowing that on Broadway.

My favorite chapter was the last one, entitled "Claimants," in which the author presents an array of stunningly ridiculous and insupportable claims regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. Bryson gave free rein to his famous wit in this chapter. I found myself laughing hysterically at some of his observations. Regarding the popular claim that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's works, Bryson dryly concedes that Marlowe "had the requisite talent, and would certainly have had ample leisure after 1593, assuming he wasn't too dead to work." (Italics mine.)

After handily dismissing all the myths for lack of evidence, Bryson concludes:
"Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man--whoever he was."

(less)

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Feb 17, 2008

Matt added it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: a much broader audience than the AP Lit and Drama Club crowds

Recommended to Matt by: Valerie Marshall (gift)

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 27, 2007

Mazzeo rated it

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Recommends it for: Anyone interested in learning about Shakespeare

This audio book focuses on the concrete facts known about the life and works of William Shakespeare starting in his life time and coming through to the present. Given the volume of work available on Shakespeare it surprised me that Bill Bryson, who until recently focused on personal experiences, in a memoir sort of way, would tackles the subject. It’s not a question of talent, but his work is interesting largely because of his views, reactions, and musings on the topic. Additionally, this is ...more

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Dec 12, 2007

Erin rated it

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This was interesting and informative. I knew very little about Shakespeare as a person other than what was presented in Shakespeare in Love which was very liberal in its interpretation of the facts. Bill Bryson presents a well researched, easily digestible little book but ultimately it proved somewhat frustrating because the main point that he makes is that there's really very little historical record of anything to do with Shakespeare. Almost everything we think we know about him (including ...more

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Dec 04, 2007

Robin rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone curious about Shakespeare

I've always been a Shakespeare fan since I first saw Julius Caesar performed in my school cafeteria in 6th grade. Like a lot of people, I do rather wonder what the man himself was like -- and this book is a wonderful look at just why we'll likely never know. Bill Bryson is just as witty and readable as always -- the man does have a flair for making apparently difficult topics appealing to almost everyone, see A Short History of Nearly Everything. The great thing is that while there are hundre...more

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Jan 12, 2009

Stephanie rated it

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Bryson has always been one of my favorite writers, but here, wherein he turns his attention to a subject near and dear to my heart... just, wow. It's such a splendid book, marvelously written and well-researched. He focuses more on all that we do not know about Shakespeare, and how facts about him have been invented for centuries to fill in gaps. He also reflects on the Elizabethan and Jacobean societies and the role of Shakespeare's work within them. Loved it. Seriously. Adored. **Swoon**

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Oct 30, 2008

Guy rated it

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Shelves: biography

Most people not obsessed with Shakespeare, faced with the 16,000+ books about him that have already been written, would conclude that everything worthwhile that could be said has been. Not Bill Bryson... and lo and behold, he's right! Bryson's insight was to see that what was needed was a book that would cut away the forests of conjecture to reveal the little that we really know about Shakespeare... and why this is so.

Along the way he pokes fun at some of the more off-the-wall Shak...more

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May 06, 2010

Jocelyn rated it

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As usual, Bill Bryson tells a great story even though he isn't making it up. Consistently funny. I love the way he uses adverbs and adjectives. The thing about this book is that he hasn't actually got much to say about Shakespeare, because so little is known about him. Bryson spends a lot of time discussing Shakespeare's contemporaries, and Elizabethan/Jacobean theater, and what we don't know, and wild scholarly theories with absolutely no real evidence to back them up. But even though a lot of ...more

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Apr 16, 2008

Lynne rated it

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Let me start out...I am not a fan of Shakespeare (or Shakspere, Shaxspier, Shkspr - see book), never was. Yet this book was great, delving into the mystery of his life. I had no idea just how little we know of him and how scholars spend their whole careers in pure conjecture about him. This is a well written, fascinating book and even made me just a little curious to go out and read Shakespeare...ok well maybe not that curious. Anyway, I recommend it to anyone who likes a little mystery mixed wi...more

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Dec 12, 2007

Jenny rated it

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Two of my favorite things: Bryson and Shakespeare! Together! And they don't disappoint! Bryson is just witty and clever enough to spice up what is otherwise merely a thorough debunking of the classic Shakespearean biography. Truth is, we know almost nothing about The Bard's real life, and Bryson chronicles this non-knowledge for just under two hundred fairly entertaining pages. A quick read, but a worthy one. (It must be said: not knowing much about the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays does not...more

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Jan 05, 2009

Huckleberry Bluedog rated it

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It's almost annoying how well Bryson writes...he feels effortless to read in the same way as Julian Barnes or Hemingway. It's a joy but the annoyance comes in the delusion that I should be able to do something that seems so simple.

Though disappointingly short, this is an excellent read and was the perfect companion for a cold post-Christmas Sunday afternoon. Bryson is honest throughout about the lack of information that exists about Shakespeare, and much of the book tells of the del...more

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Jan 30, 2012

sage rated it

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Shelves: glbt-interest, history, plays, nonfiction, reviewed

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Okay, really it should be 3 stars, but it's engaging enough to win the 4th on pure charm.

What I loved most was how frequently Bryson reminds the reader that there is no evidence for certain conjectures -- but when there IS evidence, he presents it clearly. He gives balanced pros and cons to theories that could go either way, and he addresses the history of faulty and fraudulent Shakespearean scholarship. As for the authorship debate, he refutes the Baconian and Oxfordian arguments ...more

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Jan 04, 2012

Terry rated it

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Shelves: 2012, audiobook, history, biography

This book asks a simple question "What do we actually know about Shakespeare?" and then does a wonderful job of exposing how little we do. The book is a trickle compared to the water spout of Shakespeare works that come out each year but I hope it washes away many of them. Even though he wrote a book on the fellow, Bryson refuses to use the term Shakespeare which suggests the immensity of research on the man.

The author constantly refers to his sources when pointing out thin...more

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Dec 30, 2011

Scott Taylor rated it

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A delightfully splendid book that I can highly recommend, both due to its brevity and its entertaining prose. Bryson brings the world of Elizabethan England to life, well as much as that is possible in light of how little is known about the details.

My favorite thing about Bryson's writing in general is his talent for delivering information without being verbose or pedantic. In both of those senses, this book does not disappoint. Herein you will find details about Shakespeare, h...more

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Dec 26, 2011

Marta rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction

Leave it to Bryson to write about a subject that has been done literally thousands of times and still make it not only fascinating but feel new. Setting all presumptions, assumptions, and previous theories about Shakespeare aside, Bill Bryson gets down to the bare facts that exist on the elusive historical figure and allows readers to come to their own conclusions. He covers everything from his early life and family to his plays to his death to, finally, the long tradition of doubters as to whet...more

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Oct 18, 2011

Danny rated it

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I'll admit it. The minute I start hearing about Shakespeare or British life in the 1600s, I go a little hazy. I start to get tired. So tired. And eventually I give up reading whatever it is that I'm reading.

Out of all the Shakespeare biographies out there, I chose Bill Bryson's, "Shakespeare: The World as Stage" because it was by Mr. Bryson, who is hilarious, and because it is short.

"Maybe I'll learn something!" I thought.

Well, I did. Bu...moreI'll admit it. The minute I start hearing about Shakespeare or British life in the 1600s, I go a little hazy. I start to get tired. So tired. And eventually I give up reading whatever it is that I'm reading.

Out of all the Shakespeare biographies out there, I chose Bill Bryson's, "Shakespeare: The World as Stage" because it was by Mr. Bryson, who is hilarious, and because it is short.

"Maybe I'll learn something!" I thought.

Well, I did. But I was sort of sleepy the whole time so I doubt it will stick with me. But that's okay! As it turns out, Bryson's book is mostly taken up with establishing what we can know about Shakespeare (very little) and what we can't know (quite a lot). And so my knowing not much about Shakespeare isn't all that bad. (Except that I did take an entire class on Shakespeare while getting a degree in English Literature, but there were circumstances. It was a 10 a.m. class directly following a 9 a.m. class on the philosophy of Nietszche. Those were sleepy times indeed, my friends.)

More to the point, the fact that we all (ok, maybe YOU all) wish we (you) knew more about Shakespeare is probably less that he was a genius than that we have more of his work than anyone else's from the time period. (That's thanks to that whole First Folio thing.) So he's the best person for scholars to go gaga over. Nothing against the bard, I'm just saying.

Highlights from the text:

Bryson on how some anti-Stratford scholars are picking at straws when trying to prove that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare:

"So it needs to be said that nearly all of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment--actually all of it, every bit--involves manipualtive scholarship or sweeping misstatements of fact. Shakespeare "never owned a book," a writer for the New York Times gravely informed readers in one doubting article in 2002. The statement cannot actually be refuted, for we know nothing about his incidental possessions. But the writer might just as well have suggested that Shakespeare never owned a pair of shoes or pants. For all the evidence tells us, he spent his life naked from the waist down, as well as bookless, but it is probable that what is lacking is the evidence, not the apparel or the books."

See? Bill Bryson is funny. If you'd like to know more about Shakespeare, this is a great place to start.(less)

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Aug 01, 2011

Janet rated it

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As someone who has only ‘discovered’ Shakespeare in her 40s, I think this book is the perfect introduction to him and his life.

I didn’t really know an awful lot about Shakespeare apart from the fact that he died on St George’s day, and that this date is popularly given as his birth date too. This is taken from the Christening records which show he was baptised on 26th April. It was usual for babies to be baptised within a few days of birth due to high infant mortality rates. Oh, and obviousl...more

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Jun 11, 2011

Chuck rated it

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This book is from the Eminent Lives series. A collection of short biographies that are "succinct, essayistic, and enlivened by a strong point of view..perfect for an age short on time." This is a quite accurate description of this life of Shakespeare, which covers his life in less that two hundred pages.

Thus, I wonder what is left out. But is anything. Certainly, as the book proves, there is not much we actually know about the life of Shakespeare. Bryson, in his terse and ...moreThis book is from the Eminent Lives series. A collection of short biographies that are "succinct, essayistic, and enlivened by a strong point of view..perfect for an age short on time." This is a quite accurate description of this life of Shakespeare, which covers his life in less that two hundred pages.

Thus, I wonder what is left out. But is anything. Certainly, as the book proves, there is not much we actually know about the life of Shakespeare. Bryson, in his terse and witty way, does a competent job of gathering and discussing these scant facts to create a skeletal outline for this book. In between these handful of known details (mostly gleaned from poorly recorded legal documents) Bryson fills in the gaps with historical events during Shakespeare's life and the stories of various scholars throughout history who tried to explain Shakespeare's life and the meaning of his works. In fact, Bryson seems to have read many longer biographies and even interviewed a few scholars to get the meat to fill out his thin frame of a story. And although not as funny as more famous travelogues, he does a good job of reducing this material into a readable narrative. Through his research we get a glimpse of Shakespeare's age and the sort of life player and playwright might lead.

However, as the explanation of this series suggests, there is not much depth to the narrative. A more serious student or interested observer would be better off selecting a biography form Bryson's bibliography. Because of this bare bones approach, I was prepared to give this book 3 stars. However, I have given it 4 because of its final chapter, which brilliantly and again succinctly puts to rest the overwrought authorship controversy. Anti-Stratfordians over the last 200 years (not during the 17th century when Shakespeare actually lived) claim that William from Stratford could not have been educated enough to write such deep, meaningful plays that encompass all of society, especially court life. Bryson, however, shows that these claimants have very little evidence upon which to base their theories, and that in fact Shakespeare wrote in a very provincial manner, reflecting his rural upbringing. Bryson also gives us a review of some of the questionable characters who spawned these theories. The man who championed Edward de Vere (who died in 1603 before many of Shakespeare's greatest plays were written) was actually named Looney, and he came up with no evidence other than that de Vere wrote a few mediocre plays under his own name. Thus, why would he hide behind a fake name to write good ones. There was also the 19th century American named Delia Bacon, who put forth the idea of the Francis Bacon authorship. She did piss poor research and died in an asylum after disgracing herself, her theory, and her supporters.

All in all, Bryson concludes that although we know little about his day to day life, a man named Shakespeare came from a small English village and wrote some of the greatest literature in the English language. And oddly enough, he wasn't really recognized as such an important author until almost 200 years after his death, and soon after people then started to question whether or not such a bumpkin could write so masterfully.(less)

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Jun 02, 2011

Benjamin rated it

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A wonderful read. Bryson is both informative an entrancing in this short study of the Bard of Avon. He sets out to prove two things, more or less: that Shakespeare was almost definitely Shakespeare, not Francis Bacon or any other among the 50 plus suggested "Shakespeares," and that we know quite a bit less about the man's life than we imagine, "which," Bryson writes, "is one reason, of course, [the book is] so slender." He skillfully proves Shakespeare was Shakes...moreA wonderful read. Bryson is both informative an entrancing in this short study of the Bard of Avon. He sets out to prove two things, more or less: that Shakespeare was almost definitely Shakespeare, not Francis Bacon or any other among the 50 plus suggested "Shakespeares," and that we know quite a bit less about the man's life than we imagine, "which," Bryson writes, "is one reason, of course, [the book is] so slender." He skillfully proves Shakespeare was Shakespeare, not so much with overwhelming evidence that they are one and the same, but with overwhelming evidence negating other possible persons operating under the alias of Shakespeare. Bryson also succeeds in dismissing other biographers claims to Shakespeare's life; as only the best biographers can, he treats all possible information about Shakespeare skeptically, thereby removing virtually all assumed or legendary details of the man's life. Again, rather than positing his own fully formed ideas about Shakespeare's life (which is by no means his intention), he negates the assumptions made by other biographers, and accordingly brings what we know about the bard down to strictly fact. Unfortunately, this process of stripping down the unverifiable events of Shakespeare's life makes the book feel a bit empty at points, as the reader begins to realize just how little is understood about Shakespeare, and just how little might ever be understood. But the read is sufficient in itself, regardless of the inevitable incompleteness of the biography (Bryson even has a chapter entitled "The Lost Years," and openly states that, "ever a shadow in his own biography, [Shakespeare] disappears, all but utterly, from 1585 to 1592, the very years we would most like to know where he was and what he was up to,"), and provides ample detail for understanding the culture and conditions in which Shakespeare wrote. Through engaging and terribly clever writing, and a keen ability to separate fiction and fact, Bryson delivers a tremendously enjoyable read. May he continue to bless us with his delightful wit.(less)

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Apr 11, 2011

Donna rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, 2011-read

Though my readings habits cover a variety of genres of fiction, I've never really spent a lot of time reading non-fiction. I hope to delve more into historical non-fiction in future, as it comes closest to telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. This slim book by Bill Bryson is no exception. I was fascinated throughout my reading experience, which lasted only a few days, to my chagrin.

I'd never read Bryson before, but he'd been recommended to me by many friends who knew of ...more

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Sep 10, 2010

Marigold rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, biography, history

I really enjoyed this short course on Shakespeare by one of the wittiest men ever, Bill Bryson! I've read some of the longer bio's on W. Shakespeare but it's challenging to remember the details when they usually throw in lots of information about each individual play, & lots of pseudo-information that's really speculation - because we know so few concrete facts about WS. I enjoyed this book because Bryson goes out of his way to stick to what we really know & leave out the glamor & glorifications...more

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Aug 07, 2010

Becky Ginther rated it

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So some people have said that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. Apparently that's how it is with Shakespeare - the more you try and find out about him, the more you realize how little is actually known about him.

Bryson presents what is basically a compilation of all the other research done into Shakespeare's background. He doesn't hold back in mocking people who have speculated and impresses upon the reader the importance of only sticking to the cold, hard...more

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Jun 24, 2010

Brant rated it

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I picked this one up at a garage sale with a, "What the heck, why not?" kind of attitude. This is my third attempt to read a Bryson book all the way through, yet to succeed (made it mostly through "Walk in the Woods" and I made it through a third of one of his early travel books). I guess I don't understand what the big deal is about Bryson. Yeah, he is cynical, yeah, he is a good writer, but I don't think he has a reached a level of carte-blanche-I'll-write-about-anything-an...more

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Jun 13, 2010

astried rated it

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Shelves: 2010

I had the first inkling of mistery surrounding Shakespeare's history from Jasper Fforde's Friday Next series. Reading this books gave me more background of what the problem really was and people involved in it. It was astounding how little the scholars know about Shakespeare's life and how much assumptions and wild guesses gotten print across the years. As Bryson said, he tried to only present the fact, which why his book is so short :) Had he really only wrote about Shakespeare's life fac...more

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Mar 04, 2010

Chris rated it

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Shelves: lit-crit-bio, shakespeare

I wish I owned Shakespeare because man, would I be richer than Bill Gates.

Bryson's book is okay. It's a quick read and is ideal for any student who is starting at in the study of Shakespeare. For a long time student, the best bit of the book is the last chapter where Bryson demolished the "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" ~~heretics~~, ~~sillies~~, ~~nutters~~, people's arguments.

Overall Bryson simply presents the facts and doesn't not speculate or guess (I love wh...more

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About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.
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“A third...candidate for Shakespearean authorship was Christopher Marlowe. He was the right age (just two months older than Shakespeare), had the requisite talent, and would certainly have had ample leisure after 1593, assuming he wasn't too dead to work.” — 7 people liked it

“Even Scientific American entered the fray with an article proposing that the person portrayed in the famous Martin Droeshout engraving might actually be--I weep to say it--Elizabeth I.” — 2 people liked it

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