An entertaining, authoritative and informative account of Shakespeare's life work and legacy from our leading Shakespearean scholar. The first part of the book is an evocative biographical sketch, scotching many myths - was Shakespeare Catholic? Was Anne Hathaway pregnant when they married? How could the son of a provincial glovemaker become the greatest playwright the world has known? The book fleshes out the meagre facts into a rounded portrait of the man. Wells then turns his attention to the plays themselves, their structure, their content and the language which has proved so memorable over so many centuries. Finally, he takes us through the centuries since Shakespeare's death discussing the critical legacy both here and abroad, vivid portraits of the great Shakespeareans, from Garrick to Mrs Siddons, from Kean to Irving, from Olivier to Branagh and riveting accounts of the myriad ways Shakespeare has been performed in the last four hundred years.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
One of the Shakespeare industry's most industrious scholars presents the bard's life and times, the composition and (competitive) editing of his works, the "afterlife" of his reputation and his characters' lives presented onstage. The volume combines the format of a well-illustrated coffee-table book with a distillation of scholarship for the average bardolater, if not necessarily the casual student and theatergoer. Although Wells's biographic summary is solid for all its speculative digressions and his literary criticism sound if conservative, this work hits its stride when it gets onstage, from the first performances on the recently unearthed Rose Theater to the modern productions on the newly reconstructed Globe. High points of this performance history include David Garrick's 18th-century Shakespeare franchise, Edmund Kean's scandalous precurtain rituals and Sarah Bernhardt's Hamlet, as well as such lows as Nahum Tate's popular alternate happy ending to King Lear and Shakespeare's literal bowdlerization by Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler. For modern productions, Wells's wide-ranging survey is often charged with his own experience as a theatergoer, such as seeing Olivier's "searing" Coriolanus. With contemporary scholarship, Wells gets entertainingly personal, whether describing his firsthand experience (idiosyncratically) editing the complete works for Oxford University Press's own Shakespeare department or tweaking rival A.L. Rowse for inaccuracy. There will naturally be dissension about Wells's opinions and selectivity-for instance, his assessment of Orson Welles's stagings and filmings or the extent of the Nazi regime's deplorable Shakespeare cult-but this copiously illustrated album admirably compresses more than four centuries of the bard and more than 50 years of Wells's devotion to him.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Review
Beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated, this is the definitive account of Shakespeare's life, work and legacy from Britain's leading Shakespearean scholar.
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More About the Author
Stanley Wells, described by Roy Hattersley as "Our greatest authority on Shakespeare's life and work," is Chairman of the Trustees of Shakespeare's Birthplace, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies of the University of Birmingham, and Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He is the author and editor of many books including The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works, 2nd Edition (OUP 2005); The Oxford Dictionary of Shakespeare (OUP, 2003); and Shakespeare in the Theatre (OUP, 1997).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Shakespeare: For All Time,
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This review is from: Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare) (Hardcover)
Stanley Wells' latest book combines two genres: Biography (Shakespeare), and History of Theatre (Shakespeare). It is a history of Shakespeare from his time to ours, including Shakespeare's life and subsequent theatrical performance, but excluding critical analysis and interpretation of the plays. The first 100 pages present a minimalist biography of the great playwright - "minimalist" in the sense that Wells sticks close to the (relatively few) facts that are known, or can be judiciously inferred, about Shakespeare's life, avoiding any temptation to pad out or speculate where the facts will not stretch. I found this approach to be refreshing and useful; it clarified for me what is actually known about Shakespeare's life, versus what has been inferred (or imagined) in other biographies. The remainder of the book deals with the history of Shakespeare in performance, from the playright's time down to the present day, both in England and (in less detail) abroad. The history of the original texts of the plays, their theatrical revisions (or mutilations), the theatres, producers, actors, and critical and popular responses (including Hollywood) are discussed. Given the potentially unlimited scope of this topic, Wells' treatment is brief, selective, and to the point (for example, Joseph Papp's seminal New York "Shakespeare in the Park" is given one sentence in the book.) To summarize, Wells has, a bit unusually, combined a brief but thoughtful biography of Shakespeare, with an introductory history of Shakespeare in performance. It's a fluently written and engaging overview, and as such, I think that many Shakespeare aficionados, as well as students of the history of theatre, will want to have it.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not for an age, but for all time,
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This review is from: Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare) (Hardcover)
This is a physically beautiful volume. It's an oversize book printed on thick, glossy paper. It's filled with illustrations, both works of art and photographs, from Shakespeare's time to our own.It's also packed with solid information that's easy to digest. Wells tells everything that's known about Shakespeare's life and speculates on additional possibilities. All that could have made a book by itself, but it's only about a third of this volume. He also goes on to tell about the writing of the plays and their staging through the centuries. Something I've not seen elsewhere in one volume is a discussion of the many famous actors who've played the major Shakespearean roles. Above all, this book goes down easily. It's perfectly easy to understand. There is no deep and esoteric Freudian, feminist, postmodern whatever discussion of individual plays or characters.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everything you need to know in one book,
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This review is from: Shakespeare: For All Time (Oxford Shakespeare) (Hardcover)
Ever wanted to read one book to know about the life of Shakespeare and the life of his plays? This is the only book you need. The world's preeminent Shakespearean scholar at long last presents his knowledgable views on Shakespeare's life and how the different ages, including ours, have appropriated Shakespeare for their own. The first 100 pages are straight-up biography, and a spot-on one at that, providing all of the facts that we know and wise, cautious speculation about what we don't. The following 300 pages illustrate how Shakespeare wrote what he did, and how each age has seen and transformed Shakespeare. Most impressive is that each chapter explores theatrical developments alongside textual and editorial innovations. Not ignored is Shakespeare's representations in visual art, music, and opera. A most impressive volume that is written in an easy to understand style. Any person could pick up this book and understand the history of Shakespeare for all time. Highly recommended as a companion volume is Prof. Wells's earlier exploration -Shakespeare: The Poet and his Plays. That volume discusses each individual play and the poems on an interpretative level, and a highly insightful level at that.
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