Reviews

'[A] deeply considered and stimulating book, informed throughout by the author's intimate knowledge of the literature and society of Shakespeare's age... These scenes from Shakespeare's life...offer refreshing alternative points of view that no future biographers will be able to ignore.' Stanley Wells, Time Literary Supplement 'It is unquestionably the best Shakespearean biography of the new century' Jonathan Bate, Sunday Telegraph 'Ungentle Shakespeare is beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated. Its author's scholarly credentials are impeccable. At the same time, she tells a good story.' The Independent 'Katherine Duncan-Jones's constantly illuminating and hugely enjoyable biography restores the author and his plays to bubbly life...Duncan-Jones triumphantly constructs an upsetting trajectory from playful youth to rancorous skinflint, through which art matures even as character hardens.' The Observer 'Katherine Duncan-Jones has written an uncommonly good book. There are riches on every page... Her concentration on theatre, politics, social conditions, the effect of the recurrent outbreaks of plague, make this a book that anyone interested in Shakespeare will read eagerly and return to time and again. It is an utterly absorbing book, if a dark one.' The Times