Katherine Duncan-Jones
Much Ado About Nothing
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
By James Shapiro
Faber and Faber 367pp £20
I approached this book with a heavy heart. Why should such an able scholar as James Shapiro devote a whole book to the non-question of who wrote Shakespeare? Didn’t Samuel Schoenbaum cover the Baconians et al in great detail in his Shakespeare’s Lives (1970)? And in the end, how much does ‘authorship’ matter?
I am delighted to confess that my instinct was wrong. The self-contradictory subtitle ‘Who Wrote Shakespeare?’ turns out to be a line spoken by a foolish character in a play called High Life Below Stairs, written as long ago as 1759. Schoenbaum’s book is indeed weighty and, in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk