A Life of Shakespeare

‘You are a genuine soaker in Shakespeare, and have not read him as a task. You have him by heart.’—Bernard Shaw wrote in a letter to Hesketh Pearson.

Before he became a well-known biographer, Hesketh Pearson was an actor. Few facts are known about Shakespeare, but with an actor’s eye and a supreme self-confidence Pearson has drawn a recognisable portrait of Shakespeare the man—even telling us the colour of his hair and of his predilection for black-haired women. The plays and poems are assessed in the search to discover and build up a picture of Shakespeare’s character. Pearson has included an anthology of his favourite lines and passages.