Publication date: February 2024

Paperback – 180 x 110 mm – 128 pages

Twenty-seven illustrations in black and white

ISBN 9781843682455

This rare text is the first ever biography of Shakespeare, written by one of the liveliest dramatists and poets of the early 18th century.

This landmark in our understanding of the man and his work, republished here for the first time in its original form, is introduced by one of the most original biographers of our own time, and richly illustrated with contemporary images.

Nicholas Rowe’s Some Account of the Life &c. of Mr. William Shakespear, was published in 1709 as the preface to his pioneering edition of the plays. Rowe, together with Thomas Betterton, the greatest actor of the period, carried out archival research and interviewed widely to collect as much reliable information about Shakespeare as they could. This text is as close as we will ever get to contact with the men and women who knew and worked with Shakespeare.

Rowe’s edition of the plays was also the first to be illustrated. This edition has 25 pages of these fascinating early images, mostly based on contemporary performance: a unique and charming picture of Shakespeare in performance.

Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) was the author of a number of successful tragedies, a great translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia, and the first modern edition of Shakespeare. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1715.

Charles Nicholl is the author of several biographical studies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, including The Lodger, about Shakespeare’s life in Jacobean Cripplegate; A Cup of News, about the pamphleteer Thomas Nashe; and an acclaimed investigation into the death of Christopher Marlowe, The Reckoning. His many awards include the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.