The Everything Shakespeare Book

Everything Shakespeare

The Story

Much ado about the Bard.
Without question, William Shakespeare is the most celebrated and quoted writer of all time. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to his writing, The Everything Shakespeare Book, 2nd Edition will help you fully appreciate and understand Shakespeare's works.
            In everyday language, this book covers everything from All's Well that Ends Well to The Winter's Tale-and every play and sonnet in between, featuring:

• Famous quotations
• Background information on Shakespeare's life and times
• An in-depth look at the controversy over the authorship of the works.

Whether you're doing research for a school paper or simply building your literary knowledge, this book is the perfect introduction to the works of "The Bard of Avon."

Excerpts

Top Things You Didn't Know about William Shakespeare

• The first record of the name "Shakespeare" is one of William Saksper of Gloucestershire who in 1248 was hanged for robbery.
• On April 26, 1564 the Stratford parish register records the baptism of "Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere" ("William, son of John Shakespere").

• Episcopal records in the diocese of Worcester register the marriage of "Willelmum Shaxpere" in 1582. The groom was eighteen, the bride, "Anne Hathway", twenty-six. One can assume it was a "shotgun" wedding as six months after the marriage, Susanna Shakespeare was christened.
• Shakespeare's name was spelled (or shall we say misspelled) a variety of ways during his lifetime: Shackespere, Shaxpere, and even Shaeaxsperre.
• There are only six known signatures of Shakespeare, three of them on his Last Will and Testament. They are valued at over 5 million each. There are no known copies of his plays written in his hand. Their value would be priceless.
• Shakespeare's family line ceased to exist with the death of his granddaughter, Elizabeth. His sister, Joan, survived him by many years and through her descendants the Shakespeare name still lives on.

• George Bernard Shaw, who deplored what he thought was Shakespeare's bloated reputation, invented the word bardolatry, hence the term "Bard." Shaw thought Shakespeare's ideas were "platitudinous fludge."

• There have been over fifty claimants to Shakespeare's literary crown, the most prominent being Sir Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere. There are also such absurd contenders as Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh and even Daniel Defoe. 

• Mark Twain was the most verbal of the doubters that Shakespeare, a "Stratford rustic", wrote great plays. He termed all believers (known as the Stratfordians), as "Stratfordolators, Shakespearoids and blatherskites."

 Quotes and Accolades