The life of William Shakespeare, Britain's greatest dramatist, was
inextricably linked with the history of London. Together, the great
writer and the great city came of age and confronted triumph and
tragedy. Triumph came when Shakespeare's company, the Chamberlain's
Men, opened the Globe playhouse on Bankside in 1599, under the
patronage of Queen Elizabeth I. Tragedy touched the lives of many
of his contemporaries, from fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe
to the disgraced Earl of Essex, while London struggled against the
ever-present threat of riots, rebellions and outbreaks of plague.
Globetakes its readers on a tour of London through Shakespeare's
life and work, as, in fascinating detail, Catharine Arnold tells
how acting came of age. We learn about James Burbage, founder of
the original Theatre in Shoreditch, who carried timbers across the
Thames to build the Globe among the bear-gardens and brothels of
Bankside, and of the terrible night in 1613 when the theatre caught
fire during a performance of King Henry VIII. Rebuilt, the Globe
continued to stand as a monument to Shakespeare's genius until 1642
when it was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. And finally
we learn how 300 years later, Shakespeare's Globe opened once more
upon the Bankside, to great acclaim, rising like a phoenix from the
flames Arnold creates a vivid portrait of Shakespeare and his
London from the bard's own plays and contemporary sources,
combining a novelist's eye for detail with a historian's grasp of
his unique contribution to the development of the English theatre.
This is a portrait of Shakespeare, London, the man and the myth.
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