"Shakespeare" by Bill Bryson

This might be a short, lightweight and very readable biography of the Bard but its 'evidence first' approach debunks a number of myths.

For example, the book considers whether Shakespeare spent his lost years in a Roman Catholic household in Lancashire and finds no evidence for it. It comprehensively debunks the theories that the plays were written by Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford and lists the considerable evidence that they were written by ... William Shakespeare. Though it does show that he lifted some of his material from his sources. 

I also learned that the Curtain Theatre had no curtains.

A perfect introductory biography to this great playwright.

Selected quotes:

• “Even the most careful biographers sometimes take a supposition ... and convert it within a page or two to some-[page break]thing like a certainty.” (Ch 1)
• “We know more about Shakespeare then about almost any other dramatist of his age.” (Ch 1)
• “A standard part of a teacher's training ... was how to give a flogging.” (Ch 2)
• "Vegetables were eaten mostly by those who could afford nothing better.” (Ch 3)
• “For foreigners English ale was an acquired taste even then ... it was ‘cloudy like horse’s urine’.” (Ch 3)
• “Shakespeare was a wonderful teller of stories so long as someone else had told them first.” (Ch 5)

May 2025; 195 pages

First published in 2007 by HarperPress

My updated paperback edition was issued by William Collins in 2016

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God