A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599

James Shapiro

HarperCollins, Jun 13, 2006 - Biography & Autobiography - 432 pages

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England

Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - AlisonLea - LibraryThing

Highly recommended--sheds new light on the year 1599 and the consequences of social history, especially politics, in Shakespeare's works. Helpful in the classroom as well.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - AlanWPowers - LibraryThing

I read James Shapiro's 1599 three hundred and six years after its subject, the year it came out. It is the best written book on Shakespeare I have read in decades, and since Shakespeare is only known ...

About the author

James Shapiro, aprofessor at Columbia University in New York, is the author of Rival Playwrights, Shakespeare and the Jews, and Oberammergau.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599
• Author: James Shapiro
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2006
• ISBN: 0060088745, 9780060088743
• Length: 432 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical