A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599 by James Shapiro audiobook

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599

By James Shapiro
Read by Lewis Grenville

Blackstone Publishing

Unabridged

Format : MP3 CD (In Stock)
  • $34.95

    ISBN: 9780792738442

Runtime: 14.95 Hours
Category: Nonfiction/Biography & Autobiography
Audience: Adult
Language: English

Summary

Summary

Granted the Special Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners Award for Nonfiction

Winner of the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction

A New Statesman Best Book of the Year

A London Guardian Best Book of the Year

A Times Literary Supplement Best Book of 2006

A London Observer Pick of Best Books of the Year

A Sunday Telegraph (London) Best Books Pick

An Amazon.com bestseller in Biographies

What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question and “succeeds where others have fallen short.” (Boston Globe)

The year 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet. It was when Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright.

The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

“[This] is one of the few genuinely original biographies of Shakespeare.” Sunday Telegraph (London)
“A stunning exhibition of scholarly intelligence by an academic deeply committed to arriving at the truth.” Sunday Herald (Halifax)
“A brilliantly readable and revealing narrative.”  The Guardian (London)
“This book is a masterpiece.” Booklist (starred review)
“Illuminate[s] Shakespeare’s singular genius by demonstrating how much his work owes to Elizabethan culture and society.”  Chicago Tribune
“Superb—the product of marathon scholarship, inspired insight, narrative flair, astute surmise, and searching intelligence.” Sunday Times (London)
“Throws an unusually searching light across Shakespeare’s creative genius and makes him come truly alive.” The Economist (London)
“For Irish readers…by far the best account yet written of the relationship between this island and Shakespeare’s work.” Irish Times (Dublin)
“Instead of relying on the meagre evidence about Shakespeare’s personal life, Shapiro’s biography examines how public events left their mark on the four plays.” New Yorker
“An intriguing addition to Shakespeare studies, stressing his immersion in the issues of his time.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Author

Author Bio: James Shapiro

Author Bio: James Shapiro

James Shapiro has written several award-winning books on Shakespeare, including The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, which won the James Tait Black Prize and the Sheridan Morley Prize. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the London Guardian, and the London Review of Books, among other places. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, and The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He serves on the board of directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he is currently the Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York City. He is the Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : MP3 CD
Category: Nonfiction/Biography & Autobiography
Runtime: 14.95
Audience: Adult
Language: English