With his magisterial and ingenious re-creations of the lives of Chaucer, Dickens, T. S. Eliot, William Blake, and Sir Thomas More, Peter Ackroyd has long been recognized as today's foremost practitioner of the literary biography. His adroit style and unrivaled ability to uncover the telling detail have made those books both critical and commercial successes. And now, in SHAKESPEARE: THE BIOGRAPHY, Ackroyd delivers his crowning achievement.
Thousands of books have been written about the playwright, but none has borne Ackroyd's unique and accessible stamp. His method is to position Shakespeare in the context of his world, exploring everything from Stratford's humble town to its fields of wildflowers; discerning influences on the plays from unexpected quarters; and entering London with the playwright as modern theater, as we know it, is just beginning to emerge.
We are with Shakespeare, observing him and his circle of friends, patrons, managers, and fellow actors and writers. It is as if Ackroyd were sitting with the Elizabethan audience as the plays are performed.
Because the author is coming from so intimate a perspective, he is able to see Shakespeare's genius from within, so we feel that Ackroyd the writer merges with Shakespeare the writer, the poet, the man; and thus with great sympathy and clarity we experience the way in which Shakespeare worked.
SHAKESPEARE: THE BIOGRAPHY is unlike the works other writers-excellent academics-have written, which merely analyze and describe. Rather, Peter Ackroyd has used his skill, his extraordinary knowledge, and his historical intuition to craft this major full-scale book on one of the most towering figures of the Englishlanguage.