Shakespeare: A Journey Through the World of a Literary Icon (Eminent Lives)

R. S. Eldridge: If you enjoy Bill Bryson’s books this is another to add to your collection.

United Kingdom on Nov 09, 2023

EnsembleMan: A good read

Clearly, we do not know a lot about who Wm Shakespeare was as so little about him was written down. Most of it is mythology

But many of his plays survived do to some smart people making folios of his works

A good summary and a means to avoid the mythical stories

United States on Sep 10, 2023

Cliente Amazon: Es un libro entretenido y muy documentado sobre la existencia de Shakespeare. Muy recomendable.

Spain on Aug 03, 2023

mirilou: No matter the subject or point of view Bryson delivers. There’s no disappointment when Bill Bryson takes on a subject. Even when there’s almost nothing factual to deliver the reader learns. His sense of humour is intact, his grasp of the historical context and attention to historical detail—it’s all there.

Canada on Jul 22, 2023

Norma Miles: Bill Bryson, with witty, journalistic style, turns his spotlight onto Shakespeare, the wordsmith playwright who introduced so many words and phrases into the English language, many of which are still in use today, and about whom so many words, in turn, have already been written. This is not really a biography: so little is known about the man, even down to what he looked like. Instantly recognisable, yet there are only three known portraits of him, two made years after his death and the third, a painting, which quite possibly isn't even of him. Nor is this an analysis of his works, though these are touched upon, of course. Instead it is a trip around the man, what little is known, the time and place in which he lived, the 'academic obsession' he has.become and the many, many others who have written about him.

Always written with a light touch and an eye for the curious, Bryson's book is short at only about five and one half hours and constantly entertaining as well as informative. He reads his book himself, his s. pleasant and brisk, a smile behind the text.
Thin book is a joy, as is also the short interview with the author which follows.

United Kingdom on Feb 18, 2022

FloridaDino: Probably about a 3 and a half stars, but I marked up as I enjoy Bryson’s conversational style here, as I do in all his books.
This is a relatively slight book, at just 195 pages, but that’s Bryson’s point. He wanted to write a biography about Shakespeare based purely on facts alone, no guess work allowed. Truth is, he struggles to fill out a full book as we actually know very little actual detail about Shakespeare.
We have a few passing mentions in official records, a few mentions from fellow playwrights and actors, but little else. As a middling sort of Englishman, this is normal for the time, and who was to know history’s later obsession with him. Bryson does a good job of context, of showing us the world and society Shakespeare lived in, better to understand the man himself.
Did I learn anything new? Not really. It was a nicely delivered read, though, and I enjoyed it nonetheless.

United Kingdom on Feb 04, 2021

Igelfeld: To read Bill Bryson is to like Bill Bryson, but this is not his usual tongue-in-cheek book. For me, this was just the right book because I didn't want to read an overly-intellectualized work where it's so dry it almost spontaneously combusts while you're reading it. Bryson covers all the major questions surrounding Shakespeare including his early history, his works, his questionable personal life, multiple authorship questions, and much more. It almost reminds me of the "Don't know much about .... " books that touch on subjects and then leave the subjects as quickly as they entered the discussion. So, if you're not looking for an overly intellectual book on Shakespeare with detailed analysis of Macbeth, or even any discussion on literary analysis, but simply just want to know about Shakespeare, this is a pretty good choice.

The treatment of any given topic wasn't superficial, but very few topics were more than 10-15 pages long so it's very readable. Bryson is very down to earth, so he makes sure that the text is understandable without worrying about a bunch of 4 syllable words. I'd give this book 5 stars, but I got the sense that I wasn't getting the full story in certain...

United States on Jul 20, 2017

Owl: Boswell's Introduction to the estimable Samuel Johnson's lives of English poets asks that such work should give us pleasure.

In "Shakespeare: The World as Stage" Bill Bryson gives us much pleasure. This is particularly true if our expectations are reasonable, attuned to the Eminent Lives series which intends an interest-filled brevity without scholarly prolixity. Thus, there are few foonotes, no line by line citations of sources, no index, and a focus on the eminent life more than the lauded work. That is, this is not the book for readers seeking something like "The Black Count" (Reiss) or "A Team of Rivals" (Kearns).

Bryson succeeds in fulfilling expectations from the subtitle of "The World As a Stage." He begins by swiftly establishing the paucity of factual information about Shakespeare such as what he looked like and even where he was for eight years when he left his new-wedded and early-bedded wife and before he surfaced as first an actor and then a playwright in the latter years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign.

Being Bryson, this is not a swift brush-off but a fascinating mapping of our knowledge and our ignorance. Consider, as an example, what Shakespeare...

United States on Jun 09, 2013

D.A. Lux: We seem to be inherently drawn to figures whose lives are shrouded in mystery (see: The Bible, for a man named Jesus). One such enigma, William Shakespeare, has seemingly eluded historians and devotees for centuries, prompting endless speculation as to the real identity of this celebrated writer. Did he really write every play ascribed to him? Was Shakespeare, in fact, the 17th Earl of Oxford? Did he even exist?

Enter the curious mind of Bill Bryson.

Bryson does in a mere 196 pages what Oxford scholars cannot seem to do in voluminous tomes: deconstruct the identity of Shakespeare, and do so in a compelling, well-told manner, all the while dispelling many of the myths surrounding The Bard that have arisen over time. To begin, Bryson (much to my delighted surprise) provides ample historical background into life during Elizabethan and Jacobean times. The details of day-to-day ado set the perfect backdrop for bringing Shakespeare's life to light. After all, how can we begin to understand the man if we first do not have a grasp of the times in which he lived? Bryson does an exquisite job of painting a poignant picture of the type of conditions under which Shakespeare and...

United States on Jun 06, 2009