William Shakespeare is not only generally regarded as the greatest writer who has ever lived but he is probably also be the subject about and around whom the largest number of books have been written. There must literally have been tens of thousands of Shakespeare-related tomes, many now long forgotten. It is therefore a source of wonder that enterprising writers still managed to find fresh angles from which to view the life and/or work of the Bard.
Regrettably, some achieve a level of ingenuity that borders on silliness, but that criticism is certainly not applicable to the efforts in the latest offering from Richard Schoch, Professor of Drama at Queen’s University Belfast.
He has chosen to approach the life and reputation of the Swan of Avon via exhaustive research into the history of what is now known as the “Birthplace” or, more prosaically, Shakespeare’s House. The subtitle explains the wider significance: "A Window into His Life and Legacy". While the initial premise threatened to generate a work that was worthy but dull, the professor avoids academic language and proves himself an impressive detective with a nose for a good story.
Although the book inevitably illuminates the familiar history of William Shakespeare, it is at least as strong when it comes to putting that into the context of social history both in his own time and the centuries beyond.
Inevitably, the book opens by relating the limited information that is available about the somewhat ramshackle, over-filled house on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, in which William Shakespeare was born. The detail is impressive, for example noting that what became known as the birthing room might well not have been the room in which the playwright was born.
We learn much not only about the central house but also the town and the family’s neighbours as well as New Place, Shakespeare’s more luxurious acquisition when he became a man of means. The history of the original property is followed through ownership by several generations of relations, becoming increasingly impecunious until distant cousins were eventually forced to sell as bankruptcy loomed.
Along the way, it became a myth designed to support wishful rewriting of history, supported by vast amounts of fake iconography, including a perpetually renewing chair on which William Shakespeare had almost certainly never rested, let alone penned any of those glorious plays. The property was transformed from a nondescript house into a treasured icon of widespread renown, initially as a result of the efforts of David Garrick and his celebrations of Shakespeare’s bi-centenary.
In addition to history, there are many anecdotes to amuse readers. A couple of stories should give a flavour. First, there was the battle of the warring widows, after the last of the relations was driven out of what had become a tourist attraction, a retreating family member painting over autographed walls and taking away dubious iconography before setting up a competing attraction across the road from the original, which was subsequently run with gusto by the owner.
If that sounds close to ludicrous, the auction in 1856 that finally led to the house being purchased for posterity by representatives of a grateful nation was more so, rigged to ensure the right outcome and keep out prospective buyers, who reputedly included P T Barnum, keen to get his hands on such a valuable property (in every sense of the word) and then ship it brick by brick to his museum in New York.
Even after purchasing what was by then a collapsing building with little relation to its former, august resident, there were then long debates about preservation versus restoration, eventually ending with an attempt to restore the building not to its original, pristine state but instead following the model of an overly imaginative engraving from 1769.
Shakespeare’s House is an unexpected pleasure, entertaining in its own right and also helpful as a reminder of the life and work of the great man.