or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
77 used & new from £0.01

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives)
 
See larger image
 

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) (Hardcover)

by Bill Bryson (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
Price: £11.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.50 (23%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock but may require up to 2 additional days to deliver.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

24 new from £1.13 52 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £1.99

Special Offers and Product Promotions


Frequently Bought Together

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) + Mother Tongue: The English Language + A Short History of Nearly Everything
Price For All Three: £24.54

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

  • This item: Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) by Bill Bryson

    In stock but may require up to 2 additional days to deliver.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Mother Tongue: The English Language by Bill Bryson

    Usually dispatched within 1 to 2 weeks.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Troublesome Words

Troublesome Words

by Bill Bryson
4.2 out of 5 stars (12)  £6.99
Mother Tongue: The English Language

Mother Tongue: The English Language

by Bill Bryson
3.6 out of 5 stars (54)  £6.98
Bill Bryson African Diary

Bill Bryson African Diary

by Bill Bryson
3.5 out of 5 stars (21)  £6.49
The Uncommon Reader

The Uncommon Reader

by Alan Bennett
4.3 out of 5 stars (88)  £3.47
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge)

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge)

by John O'Farrell
3.8 out of 5 stars (67)  £4.68
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: HarperPress (3 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007197896
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007197897
  • Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 16,846 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #2 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > Shakespeare, William > Biographies
    #3 in  Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights > Shakespeare, William
    #21 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > Shakespeare, William > Criticism & Study Aids

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   Shakespeare: The World as opens new browser window
www.BookFly.co.uk  -  A Stage By Bill Bryson Save Upto 40% On Your Books 
  
 

Product Description

Review

Praise for 'A Short History of Nearly Everything': 'A modern classic.' The New York Times 'It represents a wonderful education, and all schools would be better places if it were the core science reader on the curriculum.' Times Literary Supplement Praise for 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid': 'Outlandishly and improbably entertaining!inevitably [I] would be reduced to body-racking, tear-inducing, de-couching laughter.' New York Times 'Always witty and sometimes hilarious!wonderfully funny and touching.' Literary Review

A telling glance at one of history's most famously unknowable figures.As sometimes happens with expatriates, journalist Bryson (The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, 2006, etc.) often turned his attention to his native America during his 20-year residence in England (Made in America, 1995, etc.). Apparently he's now been back home long enough to look the other way in this 12th volume in James Atlas's well-received Eminent Lives series. And who better fits the bill for this assortment of brief biographies than Shakespeare, the literary behemoth who practically defines the Western canon yet boasts a CV that could hardly be slimmer. As the typically wry Bryson observes, "It is because we have so much of Shakespeare's work that we can appreciate how little we know of him as a person. faced with a wealth of text but a poverty of context, scholars have focused obsessively on what they can know." Bryson is just as happy to point out what we can't. To him, Shakespeare is the "literary equivalent of an electron - forever there and not there." Indeed, he makes so much of the fact that so much has been made from the singularly few known facts of the Bard's life that one might say this thin volume's raison d'etre is to identify the many paradoxes surrounding all things Shakespeare, which Bryson candidly illuminates in several deft turns of phrase. That is as good a tack as any to take in this sort of Cliffs Notes - style overview of the rich afterlife and times of Shakespeare, recognized as great, Bryson claims, for his "positive and palpable appreciation of the transfixing power of language" - a point on which even those who don't believe Shakespeare was Shakespeare would agree, and a trait he happens to share with his biographer.Shakespeare redux for the common reader. (Kirkus Reviews)


Sunday Times

'...brilliantly funny...As an abbreviated tour around the world of Shakespeare, this could hardly be bettered.'

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives)
86% buy the item featured on this page:
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) 4.0 out of 5 stars (67)
£11.49
A Short History of Nearly Everything
6% buy
A Short History of Nearly Everything 4.3 out of 5 stars (234)
£6.07
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
3% buy
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe 4.3 out of 5 stars (72)
£5.33
Notes from a Small Island
3% buy
Notes from a Small Island 4.0 out of 5 stars (147)
£5.25

 

Customer Reviews

67 Reviews
5 star:
 (24)
4 star:
 (27)
3 star:
 (10)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (67 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of Shakespeare's life, 31 Aug 2009
By Fiction Fan (Madchester) - See all my reviews
I thoroughly enjoyed this brief account of Shakespeare's life. What Bryson gives us is all the facts we actually have about our greatest writer - which is why the book is short - as most of what is written elsewhere is supposition. A tale speeds best being plainly told and Bryson is a master storyteller. It was a miracle that so many of Shakespeare's plays came down to us at all as the first folio wasn't printed until after Shakespeare's death and generally playwrights didn't think it worth the expense and bother to get their plays printed.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
121 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare explained, 14 Sep 2007
By L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This is a very entertaining and informative account of the life and works of William Shakespere. Although the book is short, there is much fascinating information packed into it. I found it particularly fascinating to read about the huge contribution Shakespeare made to the development of the English language, and the large number of words now in common usage that were originally coined by him. Many myths about Shakespeare are cheeerfuly debunked by Mr Bryson, like the one about his work as an author never being mentioned in his lifetime, and the one about less being known about him than other contemporary dramatists (apparently more is known about Shakespeare than any of the others). The final chapter, in which Mr Bryson cheerfuly disposes of the fantasies of those who claim that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare, is particularly entertaining.

The only complaint I have about this book is that I wish it had been longer, since Bill Bryson writes about his subject so entertainingly. However, Mr Bryson has evidentl taken to heart Shakespeare's own aphorism "brevity is the soul of wit."

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
93 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars De-bunking the Bard's de-bunkers, 27 Sep 2007
By R. Creer (Cumbria, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is an easily readable and short life of Shakespeare written for a series called "Eminent Lives" and strangely coming after books on George Balanchine and George Crick!! In it Bill Bryson, in his inimitable witty style, tells us how little is known of WS's life but then goes on to examine what others have conjectured about it, pouring scorn on so many of the theories. I have read several attempts at Shakespeare biographies but still learned something from this [especially on the Bard's neologisms] but my favourite was the final debunking of the attempts to say the plays were written by someone else. Bryson does this so amusingly [can it be true that of the 5000 books written to prove Shakespeare's plays were written by someone other than Shakespeare, three were by Messers Looney, Silliman and Battey?!] that I was actually laughing as I read it. For example, on the claims for Marlowe to have been the real Shakespeare, Bryson writes "He was the right age ..., had the requisite talent and would certainly have had ample leisure after 1593, assuming he wasn't too dead to work."

So, Bryson has produced just what his publishers wanted, a brief biography that anyone can read and learn from, which appears both learned and well researched on the one hand, but also enjoyable and amusing on the other.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Bill on Bill - all you need to know.
Here's William Shakespeare shorn of almost all the supposition and wishful thinking that larger tomes sometimes pad out with. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kathleen

5.0 out of 5 stars Did he or didn't he?
Interesting study that poses more questions than answers concerning William S. I am enjoying it, still not finished as about half way through I am flagging a little. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Kat Mac

4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, but not deeply so
This book is very good at repeating in various ways how little is known of Shakespeare; a point Bryson is clearly keen to emphasise. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Wilson Carter

3.0 out of 5 stars Substance out of thin air
This isn't the best of Bill Bryson's books. In fact it may be the one I liked the least among five others I have read (the best being A Short History of Nearly Everything)... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Demarion

1.0 out of 5 stars Maybe Bill should stick with the Travel Books
Very dull - strings together a series of well known facts on Shakespeare's life without the merest attempt to lift the tedium with fresh insight or humour. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Doris

5.0 out of 5 stars Even I have to agree with the Mail on Sunday
There is apparently 20-years worth of reading material in the Library of Congress on "Shakespeare". This is remarkable because so little is actually known about the man... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Andy

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice work ...if you can get it.
It's amazing what you can get people to pay for. By being merely amiable Bill Bryson has built a career out of re-stating other peoples ideas in the belief that his... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Fraser Hale

4.0 out of 5 stars Concise and to the Point
As readers of my Amazon reviews are aware, I have read several Shakespeare biographies. This one is short, concise and, thankfully, sticks to known facts. Read more
Published 4 months ago by James Gallen

3.0 out of 5 stars good points about Will
An entertaining read, a lot of well-known information skillfully potted, but also some good points, for example, for those who have doubts about the Stratford man's ability to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by L. Babut

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as well written as his other books
While funny, it goes longer between the funny parts in this book, and the laughs are the main reason I read Brysons stuff. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mats Helge Holm

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject


Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.