Product Description

This compilation, in the tradition of the Victorian miscellany, gathers together essential facts and fascinating insights into the plays and poems, the man behind them (insofar as this is known), and the context in which he worked. Put together by an actor and a linguist - the pair who brought you 'Shakespeare's Words' (25000 copies sold to date) - it will be quirky, illuminating and endlessly interesting. Topics covered include lost plays, what he would have studied at school, Shakespeare's pronunciation, why the Globe burned down and the difference between a Folio and a Quarto.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #257978 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
David Crystal is one of the most authoritative commentators on the English language. He is the author of the best-selling 'The English Language' and the editor of the 'Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language'. He lives in Anglesey, Wales. Ben Crystal, David's son, is an actor and lives in London (NW1).

Customer Reviews

PURE PLEASURE
Everything you always wanted to know and then some about the greatest wordsmith of all time is found in this slim, trim volume by Shakespearean scholar David Crystal, and his son, Ben Crystal. Ever wonder just how many words Shakespeare invented? Well, in case you do there are "357 instances where Shakespeare is the only recorded user of a word in one or more of its senses."

Now, just in case listeners aren't properly impressed with the profundity and depth of your knowledge, you can always toss in the number of times the Bard was among several to use a word for the first time.

Jack Lemmon is quoted as saying that he was unconvinced that Shakespeare didn't make up words just to upset the actors. (Lemmon was rehearsing for his part in Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet.")

How's that for cocktail party conversation?

David Crystal won a host of readers with his "The Stories of English." We quickly learned that he makes the most esoteric subjects fun, and he continues to do so with "The Shakespeare Miscellany."

This is one of those delightful books that you can pick up and enjoy for a minute or two and then return to as you wish. Lest you think Crystal is all fun and games - `tis not so. There are numerous insights into Shakespeare's poems and plays offering a greater understanding of this master's work, as well as interesting information about his life and the world in which he lived.

"The Shakespeare Miscellany" is pure pleasure.

By the way, do you have any idea who might have been "the dark lady" that Shakespeare addressed in many of his sonnets? Or, can you guess some of the folks who shared birth or death dates with the Bard? Alright - I'll tell you two: Shirley Temple shares his birth date, and Miguel de Cervantes shares his death date.

Did I mention that "The Shakespeare Miscellany" is addictive? - Gail Cooke

TREASURY!
A combination of linguistic and theatrical skills, David and Ben Crystal's "The Shakespeare Miscellany" is a treasury for all Bardoholics.

The book contains very useful information and many nuances and details which shed light on our better understanding of Shakespeare, his world, his life and his position in the 16th century England. All the documents and written evidence about Shakespeare preserved from Elizabethan and Jacobean times are neatly presented in the Miscellany.

The timeline at the end of the book and maps of British locations and play settings are very helpful and accurate.
The book consists of clear, semantically independent entries, so you can start reading from any page. But this is not to give the impression that the book is randomly comprised - vice versa, there is felt the overall logic and regularity through the whole book.

Pages 166 through 169 on "Did Shakespeare write his plays?" are representative and indeed exhaustive in their accurate treatment of the frivolous debates over Shakespeare's authorship and William Shakespeare's non-existence as the author of his works. No doubt, anyone - an Oxfordian or Baconian or others - once they read the remarkable entry they will suddenly become converts, given the objective, learned and convincing facts introduced!

The merit of the book is the multidimensional perspective applied by the authors: Shakespeare is appropriately introduced as a playwright-pragmatist and an actor, a linguist (given his amazing metalinguistic instinct and language creativity), a 16th century citizen, and a human being (as far as letters or written memories of others can tell about) - everything displayed in an objective, factual and entertaining manner.

As always, Crystals inform, educate and entertain!