The Private Life of William Shakespeare

The Private Life of William Shakespeare tells the story of Shakespeare as a family man in Stratford-upon-Avon. Cowen Orlin offers close readings of key archival documents associated with Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of the genres from which these documents emerge, reconsidering clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some persistent biographical fables. Cowen Orlin argues, too, that the histories of some of Shakespeare’s neighbours illuminate aspects of his own life.

This new biography explores Shakespeare’s private life in Stratford-upon-Avon, from his personal aspirations and self-determination, to his relations with his family members and neighbours. We learn that his early wedding freed him from craft training to pursue a literary career, and that his wife’s work enabled him to make the first of the property purchases that grounded his life as a gentleman.Throughout, we encounter a Shakespeare who consciously and purposefully designed his life -- a Shakespeare who, having witnessed the business failures of his merchant father, determined not to follow the same path.

Lena Cowen Orlin, Emeritus Professor of English, Georgetown University

Lena Cowen Orlin is Emeritus Professor of English at Georgetown University, Fellow of the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and Chair of the Board of Governors of the New Variorum Shakespeare Editions. She served as Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America for twenty-two years and Executive Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library for fourteen years. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; a general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics series, the Arden Shakespeare State of Play series, and the Arden Studies in Early Modern Material Culture series; and a member of the editorial boards of the journals Shakespeare Studies and Shakespeare Survey. Among her many publications are Locating Privacy in Tudor London and The Bedford Shakespeare.