Hidden Shakespeare (Hardback)

It is widely acknowledged that William Shakespeare was the greatest writer who ever lived, but what is the basis of this reputation? In Hidden Shakespeare, Nicholas Fogg examines the circumstances that made him such: his background and education, his faith and morality, the power of contemporary language and the rise of the Elizabethan theatre as a vehicle for nascent genius. The backdrop of the many stories told about him is examined for the light they might shed on his life. Did he leave school at the age of thirteen? Did he have a shotgun wedding or an arranged marriage? Was he a Roman Catholic? Why did he leave Stratford to emerge as a star of the London stage? What do his sonnets, the only part of his works written in the first person, reveal of him? Into what context can we set him in the turbulent times in which he lived? More is known of Shakespeare than almost any other Elizabethan, but there are huge gaps in the narrative. Nicholas Fogg seeks to provide reasoned answers to the many questions that continue to pervade our view of this towering figure, both a universal genius and a man of his times.