Overview

In the wide realm of Shakespeare worship, the house in Stratford-upon-Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564 – known colloquially as the ‘Birthplace’ – remains the chief shrine. It’s not as romantic as Anne Hathaway’s thatched cottage, it’s not where he wrote any of his plays, and there’s nothing inside the house that once belonged to Shakespeare himself. So why, for centuries, have people kept turning up on the doorstep? Richard Schoch answers that question by examining the history of the Birthplace and by exploring how its changing fortunes over four centuries perfectly mirror the changing attitudes toward Shakespeare himself. Based on original research in the archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and featuring two black and white illustrated plate sections which draw on the wide array of material available at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book traces the history of Shakespeare’s birthplace over four centuries. Beginning in the 1560s, when Shakespeare was born there, it ends in the 1890s, when the house was rescued from private purchase and turned into the Shakespeare monument that it remains today.

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9781350409354

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Reviews

A sparklingly irreverent and yet sympathetic account of how and why Shakespeare's birthplace became The Birthplace. Schoch brings the Stratford-upon-Avon that Shakespeare would have known vividly to life before telling the story of how a house in Henley Street turned into cultural heritage. It is a tale of fluctuating family fortunes, changing ideas of authorship, unashamed entrepreneurialism, mingled national reverence and hypocrisy, and how much the Birthplace has been worth and to whom. Brilliantly detailed and impeccably researched new materials dug out of the archive shed light on the second-best bed, the mulberry tree, the earliest tourists, the fabrication of Shakespeare relics, the auction of the house in 1847 and restoration anxieties. The Birthplace comes into new focus as a strange and wonderful amalgam of the genuine and sham, history and mythology. Essential reading for all Shakespeare enthusiasts - thrilling, entertaining, definitive. * Nicola J. Watson, The Open University, UK * Richard Schoch's beautifully extracted account of how the site of Shakespeare's birth became an international icon is Shakespearean in its range and ambition. His impressive cast includes poets, novelists, historians, biographers, actors, scholars, visual artists, local personalities, a circus-entrepreneur, even royalty, all of whom process across Schoch's Birthplace-stage and earn a place in the story. This is not only a gripping account of how Shakespeare's Birthplace evolved (family residence, inn, butcher's shop, pub, site of pilgrimage, museum, library, archive), but a delightful tour through the highlights of the first three hundred years of Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon. * Paul Edmondson, Head of Research, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UK *

A sparklingly irreverent and yet sympathetic account of how and why Shakespeare's birthplace became The Birthplace. Schoch brings the Stratford-upon-Avon that Shakespeare would have known vividly to life before telling the story of how a house in Henley Street turned into cultural heritage. It is a tale of fluctuating family fortunes, changing ideas of authorship, unashamed entrepreneurialism, mingled national reverence and hypocrisy, and how much the Birthplace has been worth and to whom. Brilliantly detailed and impeccably researched new materials dug out of the archive shed light on the second-best bed, the mulberry tree, the earliest tourists, the fabrication of Shakespeare relics, the auction of the house in 1847 and restoration anxieties. The Birthplace comes into new focus as a strange and wonderful amalgam of the genuine and sham, history and mythology. Essential reading for all Shakespeare enthusiasts - thrilling, entertaining, definitive. * Nicola J. Watson, The Open University, UK *

A sparklingly irreverent and yet sympathetic account of how and why Shakespeare’s birthplace became The Birthplace. Schoch brings the Stratford-upon-Avon that Shakespeare would have known vividly to life before telling the story of how a house in Henley Street turned into cultural heritage. It is a tale of fluctuating family fortunes, changing ideas of authorship, unashamed entrepreneurialism, mingled national reverence and hypocrisy, and how much the Birthplace has been worth and to whom. Brilliantly detailed and impeccably researched new materials dug out of the archive shed light on the second-best bed, the mulberry tree, the earliest tourists, the fabrication of Shakespeare relics, the auction of the house in 1847 and restoration anxieties. The Birthplace comes into new focus as a strange and wonderful amalgam of the genuine and sham, history and mythology. Essential reading for all Shakespeare enthusiasts – thrilling, entertaining, definitive. * Nicola J. Watson, The Open University, UK * Richard Schoch's beautifully extracted account of how the site of Shakespeare's birth became an international icon is Shakespearean in its range and ambition. His impressive cast includes poets, novelists, historians, biographers, actors, scholars, visual artists, local personalities, a circus-entrepreneur, even royalty, all of whom process across Schoch's Birthplace-stage and earn a place in the story. This is not only a gripping account of how Shakespeare's Birthplace evolved (family residence, inn, butcher's shop, pub, site of pilgrimage, museum, library, archive), but a delightful tour through the highlights of the first three hundred years of Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon. * Paul Edmondson, Head of Research, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, UK *

Author Information

Richard Schoch is Professor of Drama at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He is the author of seven books, including Shakespeare in the Theatre: Sir William Davenant and the Duke’s Company (The Arden Shakespeare, 2022) (with Amanda Winkler), A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance (2021), Not Shakespeare (2002) and Shakespeare’s Victorian Stage (1998). He led the AHRC research project ‘Performing Restoration Shakespeare’ (2017-2020), in partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Library and Shakespeare’s Globe.

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