For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story, replete with forgeries, deception, false claimants, ciphers and codes, conspiracy theories--and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination.
As "Contested Will" makes clear, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare's plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays are fundamental questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do "Hamlet, Macbeth, " and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them?
Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize How did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with as he invests in the new Globe theatre and creates four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet. This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 'Excellent.' New Statesman 'Outstanding.' Irish Times 'Enthralling.' Guardian 'Shapiro at his best.' Daily Telegraph From the author of 1599, a fresh perspective on the history of the United States - and a timely reminder of Shakespeare's indelible influence. Shakespeare's position as England's national poet is unquestionable. But as James Shapiro illuminates in this revelatory new history, Shakespeare has long held an essential place in American culture too. Why, though, would a proudly independent republic embrace England's greatest writer? Especially when his works enact so many of America's darkest nightmares: interracial marriage, cross-dressing, same-sex love, tyranny and assassination? Shapiro leads us to fascinating answers and startling stories.

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear traces Shakespeare's life and times from the autumn of 1605, when he took an old and anonymous Elizabethan play, The Chronicle History of King Leir, and transformed it into his most searing tragedy, King Lear. 1606 proved to be an especially grim year for England, which witnessed the bloody aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, divisions over the Union of England and Scotland, and an outbreak of plague. But it turned out to be an exceptional one for Shakespeare, unrivalled at identifying the fault-lines of his cultural moment, who before the year was out went on to complete two other great Jacobean tragedies that spoke directly to these fraught times: Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Following the biographical style of 1599, a way of thinking and writing that Shapiro has made his own, 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear promises to be one of the most significant and accessible works on Shakespeare in the decade to come

Beta cell replacement through transplantation remains the only treatment option for Type 1 diabetes enabling restoration of near-physiological glucose levels without significant hypoglycemia. Outlining the most recent advances and research breakthroughs, this practical guide and reference work explores the impact of islet cell transplantation and brings together leading multidisciplinary proponents critical to future success in the field. Edited by a surgeon and an endocrinologist at the forefront of the technology, this volume considers challenges associated with this procedure including lack of sufficient donor organs and the side effects of immunosuppressive therapy, as well as the potential benefits for current and future patients. Islet Transplantation and Beta Cell Replacement Therapy, after a brief historical overview, examines: the key role of endocrinologists in holistic assessment and selection of islet transplant recipients the factors underlying attrition of islet function over time and need for enhanced graft monitoring post transplantation future in vivo islet imaging setting up new clinical islet transplant programs by outlining potential models and pitfalls-including cost effectiveness and sustainable integrated approaches clinical outcomes and the future direction for islet transplantation, including alternative sources of beta cells, to meet future clinical needs through xenotransplantation, new insulin-producing cells from adult tissue, and stem cell banks

For two hundred years after William Shakespeare's death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then dozens of rival candidates - including The Earl of Oxford, Sir Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe - have been proposed as their true author. Contested Will unravels the mystery of when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote the plays (among them such leading writers and artists as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, and Sir Derek Jacobi) Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro's fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined. If Contested Will does not end the authorship question once and for all, it will nonetheless irrevocably change the nature of the debate by confronting what's really contested: are the plays and poems of Shakespeare autobiographical, and if so, do they hold the key to the question of who wrote them?

A sweeping compendium of British verse from Old and Middle English to the present, including the best work of poets from every corner of the British Isles, "The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry" offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive single volume available.

Carl Woodring and James Shapiro, the same experienced editorial team who brought students and lovers of literature "The Columbia History of British Literature," now present a volume that resonates with contemporary significance, yet also takes into account the centuries-old poetic tradition that planted Great Britain centrally in the canon of Western Literature.

"The Columbia Anthology" pays tribute to the renowned works that any include--Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Eliot, Auden. But the book also resurrects the voices of excellent poets, particularly women--such as Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Ingram, and Christina Rossetti--who have been unjustifiably ignored until recently.

Contemporary British poetry is fully represented as well, with the work of Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Liz Lochhead, and Paula Meehan bringing "The Columbia Anthology" up to the minute.

Unencumbered by extensive notes that divert attention from the spirit of verse, "The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry" allows readers to discover the poems for themselves. It is a collection poetry lovers will want on their shelves for years to come, to read and enjoy again and again.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England

Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare's staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

Going against the grain of the dominant scholarship on the period, which generally ignores the impact of Jewish questions in early modern England, James Shapiro presents how Elizabethans imagined Jews to be utterly different from themselves----in religion, race, nationality, and even sexuality. From strange cases of Christians masquerading as Jews to bizarre proposals to settle foreign Jews in Ireland, this book looks into the crisis of cultural identity in Elizabethan England and sheds new light on "The Merchant of Venice."

First published in 1996, James Shapiro's pathbreaking analysis of the portrayal of Jews in Elizabethan England challenged readers to recognize the significance of Jewish questions in Shakespeare's day. From accounts of Christians masquerading as Jews to fantasies of settling foreign Jews in Ireland, Shapiro's work delves deeply into the cultural insecurities of Elizabethans while illuminating Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. In a new preface, Shapiro reflects upon what he has learned about intolerance since the first publication of Shakespeare and the Jews.

Three-part documentary in which US scholar James Shapiro looks at William Shakespeare's work during the reign of King James I, focusing on the years between 1603-1613. The programme analyses Shakespeare's plays, including 'King Lear', 'Macbeth' and 'The Tempest', discussing how they reflect the cultural and politcal events taking place in Britain during that time. The episodes are: 'Incertainties', 'Equivocation' and 'Legacy'.

A somewhat introspective, possibly even a personal account, awaits the reader in James Shapiro's Sunrise over Belet and one wonders if the author, who shares his name with the principal character in the book, are one and the same, and that James Shapiro is perhaps writing from the heart. Sunrise over Belet recounts one man's struggle from boyhood through to adulthood with the demon voices in his head. A troubled school life gives rise to academic success and then a career in the city, neither of which assuages the increasingly loud noises in James' head and which dog James at every turn. The death of a friend propels James rapidly into a new life in another country and so his voyage of self-discovery continues. Sunrise over Belet reflects the struggles of many people, were they to admit it; the self-doubt we all experience and the increasing wonder of the meaning of life as we grow up and grow older. Sunrise over Belet is a fascinating insight into one of the many aspects of the human condition with a brilliantly managed conclusion.

The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has staged the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ nearly every decade since 1634. Each production of the Passion Play attracts hundreds of thousands, many drawn by the spiritual benefits it promises. Yet Hitler called it a convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry, and in 1970 a group of international luminaries boycotted the play for its anti-Semitism. As the production for the year 2000 drew near, James Shapiro was there to document the newest wave of obstacles that faced the determined Bavarian villagers. Erudite and judicious, Oberammergau is a fascinating and important look at the unpredictable and sometimes tragic relationship between art and society, belief and tolerance, religion and politics.

The Guide to Huge Cash Awards, Lifetime Payments & Maximum Money. By Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro. Learn how to wring Maximum Money Awards out of: Smug Insurance Companies; Rich, Greedy Corporations; Evil Landlords; and Crooked Stock Brokers.

"The history of Shakespeare in America," writes James Shapiro in his introduction to this groundbreaking anthology, "is also the history of America itself." Shakespeare was a central, inescapable part of America's literary inheritance, and a prism through which crucial American issues--revolution, slavery, war, social justice--were refracted and understood. In tracing the many surprising forms this influence took, Shapiro draws on many genres--poetry, fiction, essays, plays, memoirs, songs, speeches, letters, movie reviews, comedy routines--and on a remarkable range of American writers from Emerson, Melville, Lincoln, and Mark Twain to James Agee, John Berryman, Pauline Kael, and Cynthia Ozick. Americans of the revolutionary era ponder the question "to sign or not to sign;" Othello becomes the focal point of debates on race; the Astor Place riots, set off by a production of Macbeth, attest to the violent energies aroused by theatrical controversies; Jane Addams finds in King Lear a metaphor for American struggles between capital and labor. Orson Welles revolutionizes approaches to Shakespeare with his legendary productions of Macbeth and Julius Caesar; American actors from Charlotte Cushman and Ira Aldridge to John Barrymore, Paul Robeson, and Marlon Brando reimagine Shakespeare for each new era. The rich and tangled story of how Americans made Shakespeare their own is a literary and historical revelation. As a special feature, the book includes a foreword by Bill Clinton, among the latest in a long line of American presidents, including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, who, as the collection demonstrates, have turned to Shakespeare's plays for inspiration.
"There are discoveries and surprises along the way, like Lord Buckley's beat-era 'Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin' Daddies, ' an extended riff on Shakespeare's most famous speeches ('I came here to lay Caesar out, Not to hip you to him'), and 'Shakespeares of 1922, ' a vaudeville sketch by Lorenz Hart and Morrie Ryskind. But for many readers the real eye opener will be the heated love affair, richly documented by Professor Shapiro, between ordinary Americans and the most exalted writer in the English language." --William Grimes, "The New York Times"
""Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now" . . . is a fascinating survey of the writer's importance to our culture and his influence on literature, politics, entertainment and more." --"Tampa Bay Times"
"Shakespeare's imprint on our culture and literature remains, as this anthology so amply demonstrates. A review of it can only answer one question: Does it accurately reflect the value that Shakespeare's plays have held in the hearts and minds of Americans throughout our history? Yes, it does. We have treasured them always and everywhere. They're truly a part of America." --Bryan Woolley, "Dallas Morning News"
""Shakespeare in America" is an entertaining, thought-provoking miscellany, one that speaks as much to the American spirit of reinvention and assimilation as it does to the influence of one Elizabethan playwright and poet on the way we think and act and speak." --James D. Watts, Jr., "Tulsa World"