Living the Shakespearean Life: True Stories is a collection of oral histories from eminent Shakespeare scholars, directors, and actors in England and America. They talk about the full range of their Shakespearean lives, including how they first became interested in Shakespeare, what they have learned from Shakespeare, what the Shakespearean is, what Shakespeare might have been like, and specific lines, plays, and characters. This book is for anyone who loves Shakespeare.

Shakespeare lived and worked in an extraordinary period of change and discovery which can be hard to understand in 21st century. Just as modern audiences connect to the enduring and universal appeal of his plays, so we can connect to objects from his lifetime to illuminate our understanding of his work. This unique book brings together, for the first time, a selection of 50 objects from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon. An accessible and lavishly illustrated object-based exploration of the role and significance of notable paintings, furniture, ceramics, textiles and metal wares in the everyday experience of people living in Shakespearean England, the book will appeal to anyone with a love of Shakespeare. Organised along a simple narrative based on the "Seven Ages of Man" speech from As You Like It, the book reveals how material objects can provide greater insight into such major themes as religious and social change, education, birth, marriage, death, family life, professional and community life. Published to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, the book brings Shakespeare's life and times engagingly to life for readers of all ages.

Looks at life in Elizabethan England, covering housing, food, clothing, and entertainment

This book unearths a section (c. 1593-1598) of Shakespeare's life, as he turned 30. It takes a new theoretical approach by studying Shakespeare as a parishioner and by examining the approximately 100 families who lived in his parish. Marsh demonstrates how Shakespeare's neighbours' interests, work and connections formed part of the background environment that Shakespeare probably borrowed from, in the same way as he reworked existing stories. The parish was half female, 15% were French/Dutch, 7% musicians, one was Lord Mayor and there was the historian John Stow, 'spy/operator' Henry Maunder and composer Thomas Morley. One was arguably the world's greatest playwright but on Sunday, in church, he would have been just another parishioner.

Shakespeare's Book of Wisdom offers practical and profound advice for readers ages 15 to 115 from the writings of Shakespeare as well as from dozens of other philosophers, artists, saints, and sinners throughout history. Every entry consists of a practical piece of advice, illustrated by a quote from Shakespeare and a plain-English translation.

Why Shakespeare? What explains our continued fascination with his poems and plays? In Living with Shakespeare, Susannah Carson invites forty actors, directors, scholars, and writers to reflect on why his work is still such a vital part of our culture. We hear from James Earl Jones on reclaiming Othello as a tragic hero, Julie Taymor on turning Prospero into Prospera, Camille Paglia on teaching the plays to actors, F. Murray Abraham on gaining an audience’s sympathy for Shylock, Sir Ben Kingsley on communicating Shakespeare’s ideas through performance, Germaine Greer on the playwright’s home life, Dame Harriet Walter on the complexity of his heroines, Brian Cox on social conflict in his time and ours, Jane Smiley on transposing King Lear to Iowa in A Thousand Acres, and Sir Antony Sher on feeling at home in Shakespeare’s language. Together these essays provide a fresh appreciation of Shakespeare’s works as a living legacy to be read, seen, performed, adapted, revised, wrestled with, and embraced by creative professionals and lay enthusiasts alike. F. Murray Abraham ● Isabel Allende ● Cicely Berry ● Eve Best ● Eleanor Brown ● Stanley Cavell ● Karin Coonrod ● Brian Cox ● Peter David ● Margaret Drabble ● Dominic Dromgoole ● David Farr ● Fiasco Theater ● Ralph Fiennes ● Angus Fletcher ● James Franco ● Alan Gordon ● Germaine Greer ● Barry John ● James Earl Jones ● Sir Ben Kingsley ● Maxine Hong Kingston ● Rory Kinnear ● J. D. McClatchy ● Conor McCreery ● Tobias Menzies ● Joyce Carol Oates ● Camille Paglia ● James Prosek ● Richard Scholar ● Sir Antony Sher ● Jane Smiley ● Matt Sturges ● Julie Taymor ● Eamonn Walker ● Dame Harriet Walter ● Bill Willingham ● Jess Winfield

This book examines life in the time of William Shakespeare, a period of great advancement in literature but also a time when there was a tremendous gap in the standard of living between the rich and poor.