Shakespeare's England: Life in Elizabethan and Jacobean Times

by R.E. Pritchard

What was life like in Shakespeare's time - or, what did people then say it was like? This volume provides a picture of the age, with a selection of accounts of Elizabethan and Jacobean life taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare's contemporaries. Extracts have been taken from a wide range of writers, including William Harrison and Fynes Moryson (providing descriptions of England), Nicholas Breton (on country life), Isabella Whitney and Thomas Dekker (on London life), Nashe (on struggling writers), Stubbs (with a Puritan's view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Harsnet and Burton (on witches and spirits), John Donne (meditations on prayer and death), King James I (on tobacco) and Shakespeare himself. Also included are accounts of theatre-going, May Day celebrations, Queen Elizabeth at court, the place of women, education, garden books and herbals, clothes, food, drink and religion. The extracts are organized thematically, each section having an introduction reflecting modern historical research. A miscellany of some of the best, wittiest and most unusual of 16th and 17th-century writing, this book aims to bring to life the variety, the energy and the often harsh reality of the society that produced England's greatest writer.

Genres: History, Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Society, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 1999

Reviews

[Cricket Muse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a bit deceptive in that it is actually an account of what life might have been like during the 1600 and 1700 time period in England. While this is the era when Shakespeare was prominent, the book is not focused on Shakespeare and his England.

With that in mind, this is a fine resource for better understanding what England was all about during the Renaissance years. Commentary would have added a bit more dimension.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of extracts from primary sources. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, I found it hard to get really interesting in, as there can be little flow and connection between the segments, and there's not context to understand all of what is said.

That said, this is pretty well done and I found some very interesting stuff and some useful sources for my research. Some of the introductory commentary was also helpful.

[John Randolph]

On page 166.

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 3.5
Very interesting use of primary sources, carefully selected to aim a wide spotlight on the times, but no actual Shakespeare.
Interesting and informative though.

[Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book disappointed me. I bought it in England at Shakespeare's home in Stratford. Didn't have a lot of time to look through it before buying it, but picked it up thinking it looked great. I was really hoping to have some good material to use with my senior English classes. Well, it's interesting to some extent, but it is almost all primary source materials with not much commentary. A great deal of literature from the time period that is frankly pretty boring. I did not learn very much new about life in Shakespeare's time.

[LitMom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow! - - the worst job in Elizabethan times had to be laundering and starching those ubiquitous men's collar ruffles. Not that the book mentions them, but I thought I would. This was an interesting and quick read - - lavishly supplied with paintings and illustrations of the times. Very basic, not seeking to be intellectually stimulating or break new ground, just give an overview.

[Rei ⭐ [TrulyBooked] · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredibly easy read and an entertaining one which is undermined by the fact that when you get down to it, this is little bit more than a Spark Notes version of Shakespeare's time and that for more in depth analysis you'll probably have to go elsewhere.