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1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award 2023

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It’s wonderful to think that, thanks to these judges, a new generation of readers can discover James Shapiro’s timeless classic. One of the personal traits driven home for me was how much Shakespeare was a man of business and how ambitious he was of social status. Elizabeth's entrance followed traditional protocol: a mile out of town she was received by Lord Mayor Stephen Soame and his brethren, who were dressed in "velvet coats and chains of gold.

From now on, there would only be one book for sale about Henry IV in London's bookstalls, Shakespeare's.There was little touring theater, few books, hardly any musical instruments, no paintings to speak of, the aesthetic monotony broken only by painted cloths that adorned interiors (like the eight that had hung in Shakespeare's mother's home in Wilmcote).

Shapiro convincingly demonstrates that 'it is no more possible to talk about Shakespeare's plays independently of his age than it is to grasp what his society went through without the benefit of Shakespeare's insights'.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. James Shapiro's outstanding 1606 (Faber), in which the Jacobean Shakes­peare gets his due, follow[s] Shapiro's magnificent take on the Elizabethan one in 1599. Shapiro reminds us that Shakespeare's original draft was a work of genius but such was the nature of the man's talent that he was often capable of greatly improving already brilliant works through revision and re-drafting.

Erudite, accessible and formally bold, it will appeal to anyone interested in history, politics, literature and good writing. And then Shapiro shows how these public concerns were reflected in the plays that Shakespeare wrote that year. The story of 1599, then, is an enthralling one that includes the rebuilding of the Globe; the fall of Essex; the death of Spenser; a complicated publishing row about the Sonnets; the sensational opening of Julius Caesar; rumours of the Queen's death; the completion of a bestselling volume of poetry The Passionate Pilgrim; and finally, the extraordinary imaginative shift represented by the first draft of Hamlet. Contested Will isn’t just the most intelligent book on the topic for years, but a re-examination of the documentary evidence offered on all sides of the question.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare' Professor and author James Shapiro talks about A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599. Much as he may want to reach the common reader, Shapiro must also protect his scholarly reputation with here a defensive 'perhaps', there a prudent 'maybe'. He is the author of Rival Playwrights, Shakespeare and the Jews, and Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play.

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