Shakespeare's England

Professor and author James Shapiro talks about A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599. The book provides a look into the daily life of the playwright during a time of personal upheaval and prodigious creativity. During this period, Shakespeare produced Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and Hamlet. Editor's Note: When I read the original British edition last summer, I thought this book was pretty good both for its micro-biography of Shakespeare and for its micro-history of late Elizabethan wars in Ireland and threats of wars with Spain, the East India Company’s first voyage of empire, and the fragile web of Tudor and Stuart dynastic politics. Intriguingly, my book’s cover transposes the American title and subtitle and is entitled 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. I guess the American market is thought to respond better to books about Shakespearean genius than books about Elizabethan history. Anyway, I much preferred Peter Ackroyd’s new book, Shakespeare: The Biography.