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Off the shelf

Book excerpts, reviews, author interviews, and reading recommendations
Excerpt: "Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd"
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Excerpt: "Shakespeare's tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd"

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Learn more about authorship and influence among the playwrights of Shakespeare’s day in this excerpt from a recent book by Darren Freebury-Jones.

Excerpt: "King Lear: Shakespeare's Dark Consolations"
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Excerpt: "King Lear: Shakespeare's Dark Consolations"

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Shakespeare & Beyond

King Lear is about insiders who with terrible suddenness are shoved outside, and what they learn or don’t learn from finding themselves positioned there,” writes Arthur Frank.

Excerpt: "Shakespeare and University Drama in Early Modern England" by Daniel Blank
an older man with a beard and a younger man holding out a book
Shakespeare and Beyond

Excerpt: "Shakespeare and University Drama in Early Modern England" by Daniel Blank

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Daniel Blank writes about Shakespeare’s presence within the early modern university sphere.

Excerpt: "Shakespeare without a Life" by Margreta de Grazia
Shakespeare without a Life
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Excerpt: "Shakespeare without a Life" by Margreta de Grazia

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Did Shakespeare give much thought to how his works would survive after his death? Margreta de Grazia argues that his sonnets show he did.

Excerpt: "Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity"
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Excerpt: "Richard III's Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity"

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The disabled body of Richard III, a historical English king and one of Shakespeare’s most iconic villains, is the focus of a recent book by Jeffrey R. Wilson.

Excerpt: "Shakespeare's Book" by Chris Laoutaris
Shakespeare's Book
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Excerpt: "Shakespeare's Book" by Chris Laoutaris

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Chris Laoutaris explores the Shakespearean printing mystery behind the Pavier-Jaggard Quartos, published a few years before the First Folio.

Excerpt: "White People in Shakespeare"
The Arden Shakespeare. White People in Shakespeare. Essays on Race, Culture and the Elite. Edited by Arthur L. Little Jr.
Shakespeare and Beyond

Excerpt: "White People in Shakespeare"

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White People in Shakespeare examines what part Shakespeare played in the construction of a “white people” and how his work has been enlisted to define and bolster a white cultural and racial identity.

Excerpt - "Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne" by Katherine Rundell
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Excerpt - "Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne" by Katherine Rundell

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“Spiritually speaking, many of us confronted with the thought of death perform the psychological equivalence of hiding in a box with our knees under our chin: Donne hunted death, battled it, killed it, saluted it, threw it parties.” Read more…

Excerpt: "The Final Curtain: The Art of Dying on Stage" by Laurence Senelick
The Final Curtain cover
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Excerpt: "The Final Curtain: The Art of Dying on Stage" by Laurence Senelick

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Shakespeare’s plays provide ample opportunity for dramatic deaths onstage, and 18th-century English actors like David Garrick transformed simple stage directions in the text into “stirring set-pieces,” as Laurence Senelick writes in the below excerpt from his new book, “The Final…

Arthur Murphy's 18th-century collection of humor - Excerpt: "Laughing Histories" by Joy Wiltenburg
People laughing and playing music
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Arthur Murphy's 18th-century collection of humor - Excerpt: "Laughing Histories" by Joy Wiltenburg

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“Murphy may be the first person in history to subject laughter to such intensive and extensive study, at least from the perspective of a laughter professional,” writes Joy Wiltenburg about the 18th-century writer’s 500-page compilation of humor, in this excerpt…

Excerpt - "Susanna Hall, Her Book" by Jennifer Falkner
Susanna Hall Her Book cover
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Excerpt - "Susanna Hall, Her Book" by Jennifer Falkner

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The queen of England has just arrived at New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. But Susanna, the eldest daughter of William Shakespeare, has reasons for not wanting to host Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I.

Gaming and grieving with Shakespeare: Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel puts the ghostliness in gameplay
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Shakespeare and Beyond

Gaming and grieving with Shakespeare: Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel puts the ghostliness in gameplay

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Sophia Richardson

Sophia Richardson explores how Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel about video games, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” is also a book about Shakespeare.

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