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The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street
by: Charles Nicholl

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780141023748
ISBN: 0141023740
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: July 03, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
Sales Rank: 2578

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Not to be Overlooked

Charles Nicholl's books about Marlowe and da Vinci have previously graced my reading list: the first is a meticulous reconstruction of Marlowe's final meal in an attempt to explain the playwright's death, which is sometimes a little repetitive; the second a more conventional biography of the renaissance polymath.

The Lodger is closer to the first, in being a depiction of how Shakespeare possibly lived whilst in London, centring on a single event, the signing of a legal deposition by the playwright which concerned his landlord, but fortunately without the repetitiousness.

So little is actually known about the bard that to say it is amazing nobody did this before is an understatement, but it is a tribute to Nicholl ... Read More:

Rating:

- Entertaining fiction
Nicholl is a very eloquent writer, engaging the reader who is willing to suspend his disbelief. My reading of Shakespeare's evidence is that he was at best evasive, at worst perjurious. As a book about Shakespeare the book is a non-starter. As an imaginative description of early seventeenth century London life, the book succeeds quite well.

Rating:

- Take a walk along Silver Street - and meet the real Shakespeare!
The Lodger came to me as a Christmas present that went unread till just now. Well, Happy Not-So-New Year to me - I'm so glad I finally got around to it! My bet is that you will be, too.

At first glance, the concept and/or genre of the book may not be universally inviting; but I assure anyone who picks this up that you'll be hooked from early on. So, before going into the subject, style and so on, please - take it on trust: this is a gem, one of the most positively infectious books around.

OK, here we go: Who would have guessed that the facts about Elizabethan hair-piece manufacture could be so absolutely fascinating! What's more, this material is utterly absorbing of its own accord, even without the Shakespeare-connection ... Read More:

Rating:

- The Bard's Questionable Associates
From the initial court case Nicholl has managed to spin lives for all those involved even the servants, allowing for possibilities where fact is not available but never descending into if, buts and maybes. He looks at what the area was like but with the added flourish of imagining what the view from Shakespeare's window was, the route he would have used to get to the theatres and the landmarks he would have known - friends houses, taverns etc. This chapter combined with the one looking at the local parish records, tax records and the ground plans of a nearby house all make for a very evocative scene setting. The Mountjoys were French and Nicholl takes care to explain what a difference being French in London made to their options and trading. Further ... Read More:

Rating:

- Avaunt ye, Baconites!
Charles Nicholl is on a roll. This is at least the fourth Nicholl book I've read (the others being "Borderlines," "The Reckoning," and "Somebody Else"), and each has been better than the last. Nothing could be more mundane, on its surface, than a book about one of the houses where Stratford property owner and family man William Shakespeare lodged when writing his plays in early Jacobean London. Surprisingly, however, the story of how he tendered his services in bringing about a "handfasting" (or betrothal) of his head-tire-making landlord's daughter and his apprentice, and the subsequent story of the couple's suing (some eight years later) of that landlord for failing to pay a promised dowry, makes for compulsive reading. Along the way, we learn ... Read More:

Books : The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street