Ebook: Shakespeare Without a Life

An original account of the development of the 'idea' of Shakespeare, by one of the world's leading Shakespearians
Based on the Oxford Shakespeare Wells Lectures series
Stimulates a rethinking of the role of biography in Shakespeare studies
Explores the different ways in which Shakespeare's works were understood and valued by readers and writers until the nineteenth century, without the biography of Shakespeare we now regard as indispensable
Offers a new way of reading the Shakespearean anecdotes as literary criticism rather than proto-biography, with a focus not on what he did, but how he wrote
Examines Shakespeare's Sonnets in manuscript and print before their canonization