Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

"Greenblatt knows more about [Shakespeare] than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did."―John Leonard, ?Harper's

A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world's greatest playwright. A Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Finalist. 16 pages of color illustrations

• The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
• A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599
• Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics
• Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
• The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve
• The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606
• Hamlet in Purgatory: Expanded Edition (Princeton Classics)
• Shakespeare After All
• Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
• The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents