William Shakespeare

Very Interesting People #1

by Peter Holland

From William Shakespeare to Winston Churchill, the Very Interesting People series provides authoritative bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures - people whose influence and importance have stood the test of time.

Each book in the series is based upon the biographical entry from the world-famous Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History

147 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2007

Reviews

[John]

This is a reprint of Peter Holland's entry for Shakespeare in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It is the first of the Oxford University Press Very Interesting People series which is described as: "Bite-sized biographies of Britain's most fascinating historical figures."
Only the first 60 pages constitute a biography of Shakespeare; bite-sized indeed. The rest of the book is taken up with a narrative of the publications of his works, discussion of the performances, receptions, interpretations and adaptations of his plays over the centuries, culminating in discussion of Shakespeare in popular culture.
I've tried to read a couple of longer biographies of Shakespeare and found them a bit of a slog. Even these 139 pages were heavy going.
Perhaps I'll try a serious fictional biography of Shakespeare such as Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun referred to by Holland at p.129 of his book.

[Paul Stevenson]

This series from OUP of mini-biographies based on entries in their Dictionary of National Biography has been a bit hit and miss, and not worked as well as their Very Short Introduction series. The Shakespeare one is one of the better ones that I've read. It works well enough as a standalone book, and I liked that it combined biography in the first part, with a description of his legacy since his lifetime through to the present day in the second half. A perfectly good way of getting to be a conversational expert on Shakespeare in a few hours.

[Ziru Chen]

looking forward to reading this book.

[Smiley]

Reading 13-chapter “William Shakespeare” by Peter Holland is delightful and informative since the great bard has long been admired as one of the great English playwrights, probably the greatest one himself due to his popularity, for instance, “When listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme voted Shakespeare the ‘Man of the millennium’ in 1999, there was hardly any surprise at the choice.” (p. 138)

[Nick]

very nice little book on Master Will, easy to read and with interesting facts.

[Pers]

A fascinating little read.