Shakespeare – Bill Bryson

I quite enjoyed this quick run-through of everything we know about Will’s life which, as Bryson happily and repeatedly acknowledges, is very little. Instead we get an overview of life in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and some interesting discussion of the playwright’s known associates. There’s also fun to be had in the final chapter in which the various “Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare” conspiracy theories are amusingly demolished.

I suspect that it’s a boon that we know so little of Shakespeare’s life, as any biographical information (he was gay! / Catholic! /lame!) would surely have a reductive effect on the work itself.