Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)

Summary from the Publisher:

Covering 400 years of Shakespeare scholarship, Schoenbaum’s now classic William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life received high acclaim from critics and scholars. The New York Review of Books called it “a masterpiece,” and the Guardian labeled it “our best life of Shakespeare.”

Making the resources of the world’s greatest Shakespeare collections more accessible to all readers, this updated “Compact Life” contains a refined and amplified version of the original text and fifty of the original documents reproduced in smaller format. Schoenbaum has incorporated new material into his narrative, including an eyewitness account, in harrowing detail, of a murder believed to have occurred in New Place, the house that Shakespeare bought in Stratford in 1597. He also provides a new postscript which includes newly-compiled information from recent research on Shakespeare.

Table of Contents:

Stratford Town and Stratford Church
The Shakespeares, From Snitterfield to Stratford
Offspring
Rise and Fall
John Shakespeare’s Spiritual Testament
Faith and Knowledge
Early Employment and Marriage
The Lost Years
London and the Theatres
The Upstart Crow
Plays, Plague, and a Patron
The Lord Chamberlain’s Man
A Gentleman of Means
His Majesty’s Servant
Stratford Again
Postscript
Notes
Acknowledgements of Facsimiles
Index

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