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    A Life of Shakespeare
    A Life of Shakespeare
    A Life of Shakespeare
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    A Life of Shakespeare

    Written by Hesketh Pearson

    Narrated by Simon Russell Beale, David Timson, Caroline Faber and Daniel Philpott

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    About this audiobook

    A popular biography which looks at the life of the playwright in part through the plays themselves. The intricacies of Elizabethan drama set the background for the tale of the greatest dramatist.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateMar 1, 2001
    ISBN9789629549954
    Author

    Hesketh Pearson

    Born in 1887 at Hawford, Worcesterhire, Hesketh Pearson was educated at Bedford Grammar School, then worked in a shipping Office and spent two years in America before beginning a career as an actor in 1911. Until 1931 he worked successfully in the theatre, which provided many insights for his subsequent writing career. Pearson’s early works included ‘Modern Men and Mummers’ which consisted of sketches of well-known figures in the theatre, and also short stories in ‘Iron Rations’. ‘Doctor Darwin’, a biography of Darwin which was published in 1930, was widely acclaimed and established him as one of the leading popular biographers of his day. Subsequently he concentrated on his writing full-time. However, for a period of some seven years he was in the doldrums, following an unsuccessful attempt to get the title ‘Whispering Gallery’ published. He nonetheless persisted, and subsequently had published several important biographies of major figures, such as Conan Doyle, Gilbert and Sullivan and George Bernard Shaw. His skill and expertise was widely recognised, such that for example he was able to gain the co-operation of Shaw, who both contributed and later wrote a critique of his biography, and the executors of Conan Doyle’s estate who gave Pearson unprecedented access to private papers. Pearson was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 1964. His biographies have stood the test of time and are still regarded as definitive works on their subjects.

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    • 5/5
      The cadillac of biographers. I can't believe that I'm on a list of one. Look at the list of Pearson's subjects.