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The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street
 
 
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The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street (Paperback)

by Charles Nicholl (Author) "On Monday ? May 1612, William Shakespeare gave evi-dence in a lawsuit at the Court of Requests in Westminster ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
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Customers buy this book with The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe by Charles Nicholl

The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street + The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (3 Jul 2008)
  • ISBN-10: 0141023740
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141023748
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 18,032 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #26 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > Shakespeare, William > Criticism & Study Aids
    #30 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Drama & Dramatists > 16th to 18th Centuries

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Product Description

Peter Ackroyd, The Times
'Nicholl has brought to life an aspect of Shakespeare's career that has been less exhaustively studied than most, and for that reason alone his book is worthy of praise. The detail is delicious. It is almost prodigal. The Lodger is a triumph of reconstruction. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Jonathan Bate, Sunday Telegraph, Book of the Year
'The Lodger easily outboxed and outfoxed all other contenders in an exceptionally busy year for books about Shakespeare.' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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First Sentence
On Monday ? May 1612, William Shakespeare gave evi-dence in a lawsuit at the Court of Requests in Westminster. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street
83% buy the item featured on this page:
The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street 4.3 out of 5 stars (11)
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1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
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The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
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The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe 4.6 out of 5 stars (8)
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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Face in the Crowds of Jacobean London , 4 Jan 2008
By Withnail67 (UK) - See all my reviews
  
This review is from: The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street (Hardcover)
Wow. This book is an absolute peach, and kills stone dead the myth that `we know nothing of the real Shakespeare'. Nicholl has impeccable credentials as a student and textual detective of the 16th century literary underworld. If you have read and relished his book on the death of Christopher Marlowe `The Reckoning', you have some idea of the pacy narrative combined with careful scholarship that he deploys in the search for a glimmer of the real Shakespeare, located momentarily in time and place. `The Reckoning `won awards from aficionados of crime writing, and `The Lodger' is no different, providing literary history with a powerful narrative drive.

Nicholl starts with `Exhibit A': the testimony given by William Shakespeare, gentleman of Stratford upon Avon, in a tetchy law case involving his former landlords the Mountjoy family of Silver Street. The dispute about a promised dowry closely shadows plot elements of `Measure for Measure', and most tellingly of all, the deposition given by Shakespeare is our only record of his actual spoken words. From dusty archives comes the voice of a real man, rooted in the bustling London of the 1600s, and woven into the networks of literary and commercial relationships that surrounded him.

If you watched and enjoyed Michael Wood's series and book `In Search of Shakespeare' you have some idea of how the transcendent genius of Shakespeare becomes so much more human when placed in context. While the people surrounding the greatest writer in the English language are far from edifying individuals on the whole, they are powerfully human, flawed and fallible. Nicholl has shown how the actualities of 17th century life were turned into the most enduring dramatic and poetic art. He's done the Lodger of Silver Street a powerful service.
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49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Ordinary Life of the Most Successful Writer of All Time, 28 Nov 2007
By D. Lentell (Tyneside) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street (Hardcover)
It is a rare thing to find a book on the Bard which manages to locate the poet for all time in his own time. Last year James Shapiro's '1599' gave readers an insight into the political landscape during the final years of Tudor rule, now Charles Nicholl zooms in a little closer to Shakespeare's own habitat. 'Shakespeare on Silver Street' raises the bar again for scholars, identifying Shakespeare amidst London's tradesmen and artisans, the back bone of his literature and the society about which he wrote. Here is Shakespeare the economic migrant, spending his working life away from home as an actor, small businessman, and wordsmith. Here are the domestic surroundings in which he toiled far from home.

At the peak of his celebrity, Shakespeare lodged at the residence of Christopher Mountjoy, his wife, daughter and apprentice. The Mountjoys leased the house and ran their business in it, producing elaborate headpieces, "tires" to a fashionable clientele including Queen Anne. Nicholl describes the house on Silver Street as having been much like the Shakespeare birthplace in Stratford from where John Shakespeare ran his tanning and glove making shop. Both premises comprised a workshop as well as space for interaction with customers and family living space above.

Like Shapiro, Nicholl uses Shakespeare's writings to help illuminate this world and does not seek to impose a retrospective academic or ideological approach. It is as though animation has been given to Andrew Gurr's 'The Extraordinary Life of the Most Successful Writer of All Time'. The twist being that prior to his triumphant retirement to one of Stratford's largest residences, so much of Shakespeare's life was spent in very ordinary surroundings.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Avaunt ye, Baconites!, 10 Jan 2008
By A. Hickman (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street (Hardcover)
Charles Nicholl is on a roll. This is at least the fourth Nicholl book I've read (the others being "Borderlines," "The Reckoning," and "Somebody Else"), and each has been better than the last. Nothing could be more mundane, on its surface, than a book about one of the houses where Stratford property owner and family man William Shakespeare lodged when writing his plays in early Jacobean London. Surprisingly, however, the story of how he tendered his services in bringing about a "handfasting" (or betrothal) of his head-tire-making landlord's daughter and his apprentice, and the subsequent story of the couple's suing (some eight years later) of that landlord for failing to pay a promised dowry, makes for compulsive reading. Along the way, we learn something about the seamier side of Shakespeare's neighborhood, as well as the surprising character of some of his neighbors and acquaintances. These latter include a fortune-telling "doctor," Simon Forman, who had the ear of England's distaff elite, and a brothel-keeping poetaster (and the bard's collaborator on "Pericles"), George Wilkins. How all these characters come together makes for a fascinating journey into research on one of literature's most enigmatic geniuses, William Shakespeare himself. The text is supplemented by "the chief documents relating to the Bellott-Mountjoy case," most notable of which is the playwright's own 1612 deposition, signed "Willm Shaks." Francis Bacon could never have made this stuff up.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars How close can you get?
Don't think this book will reveal much. Too much time has past between now and then. Besides, good old Will was always brilliant in concealing his persona. Read more
Published 3 months ago by A. Milewski

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable history (and some speculation)
This book focuses on events in Silver Street, close to the site of the modern Museum of London, early in the seventeenth century. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Andrew Walker

5.0 out of 5 stars Low Life in Shakespeare's Day
This was quite excellent - thoroughly enjoyed.

One of the reviews which guided me was by Jonathan Bate, who helped compile the latest RSC Complete Works... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ronald Ellis

1.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare the Lodger, Nicholl the Dodger
Some years ago I read two books by Charles Nicholl called "The Fruit Palace" and "Borderlines" about trips he made to Colombia and Thailand, respectively, and did not believe a... Read more
Published 6 months ago by John Fitzpatrick

5.0 out of 5 stars Not to be Overlooked

Charles Nicholl's books about Marlowe and da Vinci have previously graced my reading list: the first is a meticulous reconstruction of Marlowe's final meal in an attempt to... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Steve Keen

2.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining fiction
Nicholl is a very eloquent writer, engaging the reader who is willing to suspend his disbelief. My reading of Shakespeare's evidence is that he was at best evasive, at worst... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Holofernes

5.0 out of 5 stars Take a walk along Silver Street - and meet the real Shakespeare!
The Lodger came to me as a Christmas present that went unread till just now. Well, Happy Not-So-New Year to me - I'm so glad I finally got around to it! Read more
Published 14 months ago by Plom de Nume

4.0 out of 5 stars The Bard's Questionable Associates
From the initial court case Nicholl has managed to spin lives for all those involved even the servants, allowing for possibilities where fact is not available but never descending... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Ms Alex

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