The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street
Read The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street Online
Authors: Charles Nicholl
Tags: #General, #Literary, #Historical, #Biography & Autobiography, #Social Science, #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Customs & Traditions, #Shakespeare, #Cripplegate (London; England), #Dramatists; English
Table of Contents
PART ONE - ‘One Mr Shakespeare’
Chapter 4 - Shakespeare in London
Chapter 5 - The house on the corner
Chapter 7 - ‘Houshould stuffe’
Chapter 10 - St Martin le Grand
Chapter 11 - Success and danger
Chapter 12 - Dr Forman’s casebook
Chapter 15 - The ‘tire-valiant’
Chapter 18 - Blackfriars and Navarre
Chapter 19 - Shakespeare’s aliens
Chapter 21 - Enter George Wilkins
Chapter 23 - Prostitutes and players
Chapter 24 - Customer satisfaction
Chapter 28 - ‘They have married me!’
Chapter 29 - Losing a daughter
Appendix: - The Belott-Mountjoy Papers
FOR MORE FROM CHARLES NICHOLL, LOOK FOR THE
penguin books
THE LODGER SHAKESPEARE
Charles Nicholl is a historian, biographer, and travel writer. His books include
The Reckoning
(winner of the James Tait Black Prize for biography and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award for nonfiction),
A Cup of News: The Life of Thomas Nashe
,
Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
(National Portrait Gallery Insights series), and
Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa
(winner of the Hawthornden Prize). His most recent book was the acclaimed biography
Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind
, which has been published in seventeen languages.
Praise for
The Lodger Shakespeare
“Mr. Nicholl’s efforts [bear] delicious fruit.
The Lodger Shakespeare
... opens a window onto Jacobean London and the swirl of sights and sensations that surrounded Shakespeare and inevitably found their way into his plays. From a mere handful of dry facts embedded in an obscure lawsuit, Mr. Nicholl brings forth a gaudy, tumultuous, richly imagined world.”—William Grimes,
The New York Times
“[An] entertaining biographical study of Shakespeare. . . . Through imaginative use of primary source material, [Nicholl] culls the ‘secret flavours of particularity’ that distinguished a corner of London at the turn of the seventeenth century. . . . With lively readings of the plays and a nuanced portrait of their author, he capably captures ‘the simmering randiness of the age.’”—
The New Yorker
“
The Lodger Shakespeare
enhances our sense of a great dramatist’s work and world by looking at the people around him. [Nicholl’s] prose moves steadily along, eschews gush, jargon and digression, and generally inspires confidence. This is the voice of a man who knows his stuff. A pro.”
—Michael Dirda,
The Washington Post
“Nicholl’s narrative technique is one of exhaustive research and elegant prose; [his] take is quietly pioneering: a new lens and an unaired episode. But beyond a claim to academic innovation,
The Lodger Shakespeare
is a brave and spotless statement on how we view W.S., and the subject of those we deem ‘great.’”—Dan Fall,
The Brooklyn Rail
“Nicholl takes us into Shakespeare’s life on Silver Street, the squalid underworld of medieval London. Taverns that double as brothels, cantankerous pimps, ambitious prostitutes, famed quacks—it’s all here. . . . It is thrilling, and also revealing, to brush through Charles Nicholl’s expert reconstruction of the one time that the Bard’s words were actually reported.”—Vikram Johri,
St. Petersburg Times
William Shakespeare with underpropper (see Chapter 17)
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First published in Great Britain as
The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street
by Allen Lane, a division of Penguin Books Ltd 2007
First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2008
Published in Penguin Books (UK) 2008
Published in Penguin Books (USA) 2008
Copyright © Charles Nicholl, 2007
All rights reserved
eISBN : 978-1-101-01125-6
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. 2. Dramatists, English—Early modern, 1500-1700—
Biography. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Homes and haunts—England—London.
4. Cripplegate (London, England)—Social life and customs. I. Title.
PR2907.N53 2008
822.3’3—dc22
[B]
2007042553
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In memory of
Jan Farrell
and
Mary Ensor
‘Every contact leaves traces . . .’
Edmond Locard,
Manuel de Technique Policière
, 1923
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece. Engraved portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout (second state). Title-page illustration from
Mr William Shakepeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies
[the First Folio], 1623.
Map. The ‘Agas’ map of London,
c
. 1561. Copyright © Guildhall Library, London.
1. Shakespeare’s deposition at the Court of Requests, 11 May 1612 (PRO REQ 4/1/4). Copyright © The National Archives.
2. Jacobean law-court. Seventeenth-century woodcut reproduced in
The Roxburghe Ballads
, ed. William Chappell and J. W. Ebsworth (The Ballad Society, 1871-91).
3. Witness-list for the Belott-Mountjoy suit, May 1612 (PRO REQ 1/199). Copyright © The National Archives.
4. Signatures of Daniel Nicholas, William Eaton, Noel Mountjoy and Humphrey Fludd, May-June 1612 (PRO REQ 4/1/4). Copyright © The National Archives.
5. The Wallaces at the Record Office,
c
. 1909. Papers of Charles William Wallace, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (Box 15 B 37).
6. Detail from the ‘Agas’ map,
c
. 1561. Copyright © Guildhall Library, London.
7. The Coopers’ Arms, Silver Street,
c
. 1910. From
Harper’s Monthly Magazine
, Vol. 120, March 1910. Photo: Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
8. St Giles, Cripplegate, after the bombs, 1941. Pen, ink and wash drawing by Dennis Flanders. Guildhall Library Print Room, Flanders Collection (258/GIL Q4768985). Copyright © Estate of the artist.
9. Plaque on the site of St Olave’s, Silver Street. Photo: the author.
10. John Banister at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, 1580. Glasgow University Library (Hunter MS 364 Top v 14, fol. 59). Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library.
11. Title-page illustration from Thomas Dekker,
Dekker his Dreame
(1620).
12.
Le Cousturier
by Jean LeClerc,
c
. 1600. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Photo: Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library.
13. Extract from the subsidy roll for Aldersgate ward, 1582 (PRO E179/251/16, fol. 24). Copyright © The National Archives.
14. ‘Mrs Monjoyes childe’. Burial register of St Olave’s, Silver Street, 27 February 1596. Guildhall Library (MS 6534, fol. 106). Copyright © Guildhall Library, London.
15. Marie Mountjoy visits Simon Forman, 22 November 1597 (Bodleian, Ashmole MS 226, fol. 254v). Copyright © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
16. Engraved portrait of Simon Forman, eighteenth century. Photo: Smithsonian Institution Library, Washington DC.
17. Henry Wood visits Forman, 20 March 1598 (Bodleian, Ashmole MS 195, fol. 15V). Copyright © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.