With Shakespeare Michael Wood has provided a wide-ranging summary of contemporary historical research regarding the most celebrated author in the English language. Beginning with an analysis of the roiling religious and political conflicts in Shakespeare’s boyhood England, Wood observes that, if "great writers are made by their times, then to be born in 1564 was to be born in very interesting times indeed." For Wood, the tensions of the times generated the modern era and formed Shakespeare, one of the first modern men.

In addition to the investigation of the political context for Shakespeare’s work, Wood also explores Shakespeare’s erotic life and the genesis of his theater career. Readers learn early on that Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway was likely a "shotgun wedding" due to her impending pregnancy. From there, Wood speculates about the "lost years" of Shakespeare’s life: the ten year period for which virtually no documentary evidence is extant and, unfortunately, the period that marked Shakespeare’s departure from Avon and entry into London theatrical circles. Later, in the requisite investigation of the identity of the "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets, Wood revitalizes a theory dismissed by some scholars: that the woman was none other than Emilia Lanier, mistress of Shakespeare’s patron.

A companion to the PBS documentary series, the book is not comprehensive of Shakespeare studies--probably no book could be. Beyond some early investigations of Shakespeare’s Midlands dialect and some short examinations of the plays and poems, Wood provides far less close reading of the poetry and the plays than one would expect. But the book does provide a broad historical understanding of Shakespeare’s world and a flavor for his daily life. The volume is also complemented by lavish illustrations, detailed maps, and period artwork. --Patrick O’Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
The companion volume to Wood's four-part PBS documentary, to air in early 2004, this life of Shakespeare has all the vividness of a good television profile, backed up with a keen and contentious historical perspective on his turbulent era. Like many of the Bard's biographers who want to surpass the few official documents and brief contemporary testaments that form the official record, Wood's lively portrait is half hypothesis and half argument, embellished with speculative digressions. Addressing both Shakespeare's artistic universality and his religious beliefs, Wood considers him a Catholic with a capital "c" as well as a small one. Wood doesn't have new evidence to support this necessarily, but he does delve into the Warwickshire region's history as a flashpoint of crypto-Catholicism, which may have touched Shakespeare's family and their neighbors and distant relatives. As an old medieval hand, Wood (In Search of the Dark Ages) also positions Shakespeare on the cusp of the modern age, but with a firm background in the old traditions. He's also superb at bringing together the Warwickshire idiom and rural nomenclature that run through the plays. Wood brings 16th-century London to raucous life-even if his view of the Elizabethan era concentrates on its grim politics at the cost of its cultural renaissance. Throughout, Shakespeare is treated as a living person inhabiting his time (although sometimes Wood draws parallels too close, such as between the Diggers' revolt and Coriolanus). The absence of source notes will frustrate serious readers, but the copious color illustrations and lively readability will satisfy others until the TV documentary airs. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Omnivorous filmmaker, author, and historian Wood devours yet another monumental subject in this illustrated biography of William Shakespeare. One might expect a cursory run-through of familiar schoolbook legends, but not so--Wood has crafted a book of substance and originality. Combining a wealth of scholarship and a bit of his own sleuthing, Wood presents a portrait of Shakespeare as very much a child of Stratford, a poet for whom the people of the village and countryside of his youth were always a part of his conscious, creative life. We are also given a convincing portrait of the artist's struggles in the unpredictable world of the Elizabethan theater. Wood does not shy away from amateur speculation, either--as when he offers up his own candidate for Shakespeare's mysterious "Dark Lady." A highly readable, informative, and artfully illustrated volume for bardolaters and common readers alike. Trygve Thoreson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

William Shakespeare is so firmly entrenched in our cultural terrain that it is almost impossible to think of him as a man of his own time. In this striking pictorial biography, British author Michael Wood presents the Bard of Avon as an Elizabethan who was profoundly shaped by his tumultuous times. Wood presents Shakespeare's England as a turbulent and fractious place, a kingdom rife with murderous purges and religious plots.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Drawing on an extensive range of sources, Michael Wood takes us back into Elizabethan England to reveal a man who was very much a product of his time. Marked by murderous plots and state terror, religious divisions and rebellious movements, the Spanish Armada and the colonization of the Americas, Shakespeare's dramatic world is here conjured like never before. Using a wealth of unexplored archive evidence - including nineteenth-century photographs of Tudor buildings that survived London's Great Fire - the author dramatically conjures up the neighborhoods where Shakespeare lived and worked during his glittering career. We enter the lodgings where he wrote his greatest plays, and meet the real-life characters who inspired him: doctors, landladies, musicians, foreigners and members of London's black population. We learn of his family's Catholic roots, light is shed on his father's changing fortunes, and new evidence for the dating of the sonnets reveals anguished reactions to the death of his only son.

Stocked with fresh insights and discoveries, this compelling work of investigative journalism reinstates the image of William Shakespeare as a thinking artist, a man who held up a mirror to his age, but who was also, as his friend Ben Jonson said, "not of an age, but for all time."

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The companion volume to Wood's four-part PBS documentary, to air in early 2004, this life of Shakespeare has all the vividness of a good television profile, backed up with a keen and contentious historical perspective on his turbulent era. Like many of the Bard's biographers who want to surpass the few official documents and brief contemporary testaments that form the official record, Wood's lively portrait is half hypothesis and half argument, embellished with speculative digressions. Addressing both Shakespeare's artistic universality and his religious beliefs, Wood considers him a Catholic with a capital "c" as well as a small one. Wood doesn't have new evidence to support this necessarily, but he does delve into the Warwickshire region's history as a flashpoint of crypto-Catholicism, which may have touched Shakespeare's family and their neighbors and distant relatives. As an old medieval hand, Wood (In Search of the Dark Ages) also positions Shakespeare on the cusp of the modern age, but with a firm background in the old traditions. He's also superb at bringing together the Warwickshire idiom and rural nomenclature that run through the plays. Wood brings 16th-century London to raucous life-even if his view of the Elizabethan era concentrates on its grim politics at the cost of its cultural renaissance. Throughout, Shakespeare is treated as a living person inhabiting his time (although sometimes Wood draws parallels too close, such as between the Diggers' revolt and Coriolanus). The absence of source notes will frustrate serious readers, but the copious color illustrations and lively readability will satisfy others until the TV documentary airs. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Applying techniques of investigative journalism and referencing newly uncovered archival evidence, Wood (fellow, Royal Historical Society; In Search of the Trojan War) offers a forceful portrait of Shakespeare and his world, filling in some of the tantalizing blanks. He identifies the "dark lady" as Emilia Lanier and provides evidence indicating that Shakespeare and his family retained their Catholic faith and risked the dangers of prosecution. Wood clearly identifies those points at which primary evidence disappears and at which he begins to base his conclusions on materials from the social, political, and cultural history of Shakespeare's era. While much of the material is based on the research of other scholars, Wood's work includes enough new detail to merit consideration for purchase. It is also handsomely packaged, with more than 100 full-color and black-and-white illustrations. Recommended for public libraries and for consideration by academic libraries. [Shakespeare will be published to accompany a four-part PBS documentary.-Ed.]-Shana C. Fair, Ohio Univ. Lib., Zanesville Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews