Product Description

No issue in Shakespeare studies is more important than determining what he wrote. For over two centuries scholars have discussed the evidence that Shakespeare worked with co-authors on several plays, and have used a variety of methods to differentiate their shares from his. In this wide-ranging study, Brian Vickers takes up and extends these discussions, presenting compelling evidence that Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus together with George Peele, Timon of Athens with Thomas Middleton, Pericles with George Wilkins, and Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen with John Fletcher. In Part One Vickers reviews the standard processes of co-authorship as they can be reconstructed from documents connected with the Elizabethan stage, and shows that every major, and most minor dramatists in the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline theatres collaborated in getting plays written and staged. This is combined with a survey of the types of methodology used since the early nineteenth century to identify co-authorship, and a critical evaluation of some 'stylometric' techniques. Part Two is devoted to detailed analyses of the five collaborative plays, discussing every significant case made for and against Shakespeare's co-authorship. Synthesising two centuries of discussion, Vickers reveals a solidly based scholarly tradition, building on and extending previous work, identifying the co-authors' contributions in increasing detail. The range and quantity of close verbal analysis brought together in Shakespeare, Co-Author present a compelling case to counter those 'conservators' of Shakespeare who maintain that he is the sole author of his plays.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2128314 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

Jonathan Bate, The Times Literary Supplement
"... magisterial survey of (almost) everything written on the subject of Shakespearean collaboration in the past 150 years."

Review
Vickers provides a marvelous review of standard Elizabethan stage practices ... The intelligence and marvelous erudition of this fine book are complemented by a fine and clear prose style ... This rich monograph is a pleasure to read and ponder, from beginning to end. (The Virginia Quarterly Review )

Brian Vickers's stated aim is to explore and expand our knowledge of Shakespeare's collaboration with other dramatists ... Although, inevitably, some of his arguments and pieces of evidence are more convincing than others, overall he makes his case, and it will be an obdurate reader indeed who is not persuaded. (Renaissance Quarterly )

Vickers is an extremely engaging writer ... [his] work is exemplary in its logic, historical grounding, and inclusiveness, and it is certain to be the definitive book on its subject for the foreseeable future. (Renaissance Quarterly )

... a major re-examination not just of the collaborative plays but of multiple authorship in Renaissance drama generally. Historical as well as critical, [Vickers's] survey exposes the ignorance of many a modern editor and commentator ... His book is a major event - and at a very fair price. (English Studies )

Vickers is to be thanked for telling the world in no uncertain terms some old news and some new news that it is often reluctant to hear. (The Library )

Vicker's historical view of his topic is scholarly, substantial, and engaging. (The Library )

... essential reading for those studying any of the five plays on which it focuses, and for all who are concerned with Shakespeare as a dramatic author. (The Library )

... exceptionally scholarly work. This rich monograph is a pleasure to read and ponder, from beginning to end. (Virginia Quarterly Review )

The intelligence and marvellous erudition of this fine book are complemented by a fine and clear prose style. (Virginia Quarterly Review )

... a major contribution to the arcane domain of attribution studies, which has wider implications for our understanding of Shakespeare's poetry and plays. (The Times Higher Education Supplement )

Vickers has set out once again to confound the forces of darkness in Shakespeare studies, this time by confronting them on the corpse-strewn battlefield of attribution. (The Times Higher Education Supplement )

It is potentially the most influential and certainly the most scholarly book on the constitution of Shakespeare's canon since Sir E.K.Chamber's The Disintegration of Shakespeare (1924). (Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America )

Brian Vickers has brought clarity to the old and hotly debated question of Shakespeare's work with co-authors. As a result changes will be made in some future editions of Shakespeare ... Vickers's book also gives a good sense of the opposing forces in the co-authorship debate. (The New York Times )

will become the indispensable source-book for all future investigations of authorship in the five plays he considers ... Vickers amasses and assesses the evidence for each collaboration methodically, exhaustively, even exhaustingly ... Vickers has doggedly and unrelentingly assembled enough material to make it impossible for any future editor to have the excuse of overlooking either evidence or argument...with the publication of Vickers's book, it is no longer possible for any serious Shakespearean to overlook, as so many have for so long, the overwhelming evidence that Shakespeare sometimes wrote with others. (Brian Boyd, Shakespeare Quarterly )

Granted that establishing the identity of co-authors beyond all doubt is still technically impossible, Shakespeare, Co-Author remains substantial and valuable. The sheer mass of information and erudition which the author brings to his subject, his strictures which are both to the point and sometimes sententious, the energy with which he presents his evidence are remarkable. Best of all is the force with which he brings to attention matters of authorship which have been side-stepped by some recent editors, not least because of their daunting complexity and intractability. Vickers is to be admired for venturing into the no man's land where literary and linguistic criteria wrestle in the dark like Jacob and the angel. (Thomas Merriam, Notes and Queries )

... magisterial survey of (almost) everything written on the subject of Shakespearean collaboration in the past 150 years ... Brian Vickers's book Shakespeare, Co-Author, is a triumphant application of scientific method to literary attribution studies. (Jonathan Bate, The Times Literary Supplement )

Brian Vickers has brought clarity to the old and hotly debated question of Shakespeares work with co-authors. As a result changes will be made in some future editions of Shakespeare. Vickers book also gives a good sense of the opposing forces in the co-authorship debate. (The New York Times )

Rewarding ... sharp glimpses of what it was like to write for the stage in Elizabethan and Jacobean London. Vickers gives an indelible impression of the sheer hunger for plays of London's theatre companies from the 1590s. (John Mullan, The Guardian (Review) )

Virginia Quarterly Review
"... exceptionally scholarly work. This rich monograph is a pleasure to read and ponder, from beginning to end."

Customer Reviews

A hidden treasure --
This book considers those plays written by Shakespeare which contain strong evidence of a second hand. Five plays are examined: Titus Andronicus, Timons of Athens, Pericles, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

However, it is also a detailed and fascinating examination of the life and realities of writing plays for the Elizabethan/Jacobean stage.

If you require a detailed introduction to attribution studies, methods of play production, Shakespeare's contemporaries, and matters such as how and to whom plays were sold: this book will contribute greatly to that understanding. The quantity and quality of detail throughout is both absorbing, scholarly and although set at an advanced level - a real page turner !

But this volume is so much more than that: it provides a clear and intelligent starting point for a fresh appreciation of Shakespeare as a writer and sometimes collaborator.

It demonstrates that playwriting was highly competitive, often collaborative, and explains how Shakespeare's contemporaries often worked alongside him, in the heat of composition so to speak, which almost certainly contributed to the canon of his works we enjoy today.

If anything, this highly collaborative and often harsh environment elevates the status of Shakespeare, it's a timely piece of criticism, which does not dilute his achievements. If anything - it extends them.

It also directs merit and recognition, considered by many long overdue, to those who shared his profession and contributed to his oeuvre.

The fact that the author has considered both old and new criticism, rather than relying only upon reviews of the last twenty years, is refreshing.

It is a very rewarding read with clear and sensible analysis throughout.