Shakespeare and His Tragic Life

First published in 1909, «The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life» is a lively biography of England and arguably the world’s greatest playwright and poet by an ardent admirer. Pursuing the thesis that a man so elusive in the few surviving documents is found full blown in very one of his works, Frank Harris, a successful journalist and editor, turns his hand to creating an impressionistic portrait that is a t once a highly idiosyncratic exploration of the plays and a telling of the life through them. A product of late-Victorian Bardolatry, Harris’s Shakespeare was both hailed and criticised in its day, the New York Times reviewer declaring that ‘This is the book for which we have waited a lifetime’, while academic critics attacked it as ‘nonsense’. Controversial and self-confident, this biographical study retains its interest as a work of period charm. Bristling with fresh, if not always convincing, arguments, combative in style, and with a full battery of belletristic effects, Harris, as ever, pulls off a tour de force.