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Charles Nicholl: Shakespeare RevealedDavid Chadderton reports from the Edinburgh Book FestivalDateline: 19th August, 2008Charles Nicholl spoke to the Edinburgh Book Festival about his book The Lodger that tries to open up a whole section of Shakespeare's life from a small number of documents in a fascinating historical detective story. The earliest of the six surviving signatures of William Shakespeare is on a document from 1612, when the great man was 48 years old, from the Court of Requests in Westminster, broadly equivalent to the present-day Small Claims Court, before which he gave evidence in a case involving an alleged unpaid dowry of £60. The significance of this is that this is the only place that Shakespeare's spoken words are recorded, and he talks about his life as a lodger with the defendants, the Mountjoys, on Silver Street in an area of London known as Cripplegate during the time the dowry is alleged to have been promised in 1604. The statement is one of about twelve documents relating to the case that mention Shakespeare, including a list of witnesses who spoke at the trial and references to him in the statements of other witnesses. Whilst his wife and children lived in Stratford, Shakespeare lived in rented accommodation in London for much of his working life. Although some of the areas in which he lived are known, this is the only actual address that has been found. The house was within the city walls and therefore he had a fair distance to travel to work at the Globe. The court documents were discovered in 1909 by Charles William Wallace, an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska, who published his discovery in 1910 but suffered some snobbery from the Shakespeare establishment, particularly in England, because he was American. Remarkably, they have been largely ignored as a biographical source for the playwright, something that Nicholl was keen to put right with his book. Nicholl was very keen to portray Shakespeare not as a lone genius in an ivory tower churning out masterpieces but as a hardworking writer, actor and producer living amongst real people whose lives made an impact on his own life and probably on his writing. This is the only time when we are able to look at specific plays against the backdrop of actual events happening in his life. Nicholl told his fascinating tale with such enthusiasm and passion that it was difficult for him to stop for questions and to stop answering questions when his time was up. Fortunately he was more than willing to continue the discussion in the book signing tent for anyone who wanted to speak to him. David Chadderton
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