1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro
1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro
James Shapiro focuses on two significant years in the life of the Bard. 1599 is laden with juicy details as well as scholarly clout — this was the year Shakespeare wrote As You Like It, Henry V, Julius Caesar and drafted Hamlet, and was, Shapiro argues, a crucial year in his development, which set him on course for Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. The year 1606 was more tumultuous as Britain went through a series of panics from the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot in the previous year to a Star Chamber investigation of cases of faked demonic