A Shakespeare Reading List
While online sites such as Open Source Shakespeare and You Tube are vital resources, my preferred reference sources for all-things-Shakespeare are still books. Compiling a list of my favorite and/or most helpful books on Shakespeare is an ongoing, ultimately impossible task, but the list below is a good start. These represent the heart of my personal Shakespeare library and I’m sure show my biases and particular hang-ups. I’ve broken the list into various categories: popular, academic, “Catholic Shakespeare,” teaching the Bard, and my Top Five. Most of these works can still be found in libraries and bookstores. Hyperlinked titles are books for sale at Amazon.com.
POPULAR
• Bates, Jonathan. The Genius of Shakespeare . London: Picador, 1997.
• Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard. Napierville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2013.
• Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human . New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
• Crystal, Ben. Shakespeare on Toast. London: Icon Books, 2008.
• Fogg, Nicholas. Hidden Shakespeare: A Biography. Gloucestershire: Amberly Publishing, 2012.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare . New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004.
• Norwich, John Julius. Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485. New York: Touchstone, 2001.
• Rosenbaum, Ron. The Shakespeare Wars. New York: Random House, 2006.
• Rowse, A. L. William Shakespeare: A Biography . New York: Harper and Row, 1963.
• Shapiro, James. Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
• Shapiro, James, Ed. Shakespeare in America: An Anthology. New York: Library of America, 2014.
• Shapiro, James, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599. New York, Harper Collins, 2005.
• Schoenbaum, Sam. Shakespeare: His Life, His Language, His Theater . New York: Signet Classics, 1990.
• Schoenbaum, Sam. Shakespeare’s Lives . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Tanner, Tony. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2012.
• Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare & Co. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006.
• Wilson, Edwin, ed. Shaw on Shakespeare. New York: Applause, 2002.
• Wilson, Ian. Shakespeare: The Evidence : Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work . New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
ACADEMIC
• Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of facts and Problems – 2 Volume Complete Set ( Volumes I and II ) . 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930.
• Gallagher, Catherine & Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Goddard, Harold. The Meaning of Shakespeare, Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
• Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare: The Lost Years . Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.
• Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s Language . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000.
• Kermode, Frank. The Age of Shakespeare. New York: Random House, 2004.
• Muir, Kenneth. The Sources of Shakespeare’s Plays . London: Methuen, 1977.
• Rothwell, Kenneth. A History of Shakespeare on Screen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
• Schoenbaum, Sam. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford Paperbacks) . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Schoenbaum, Sam. William Shakespeare: Records and Images . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
• Taylor, Gary. Reinventing Shakespeare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Wells, Stanley, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies (Cambridge Companions to Literature) . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
CATHOLIC SHAKESPEARE
• Asquinth, Clare. Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. New York: Public Affairs, 2005.
• Hammerschmidt-Hummel, Hildegard. The Life and Times of William Shakespeare. London: Chaucer Press, 2007.
• Milward, Peter. Shakespeare the Papist. Naples, Fla: Sapientia Press, 2005.
• Noonan, John T., Jr. Shakespeare’s Spiritual Sonnets. Charleston: 2011.
• Pearce, Joseph. The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008.
• Roe, Richard Paul. The Shakespeare Guide to Italy. New York, Harper Perennial, 2011.
• Sams, Eric. The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
• Wilson, Ian. Shakespeare: The Evidence. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1993.
SHAKESPEARE FOR CHILDREN & ACTING SHAKESPEARE
• Brine, Adrienne & Michael York. A Shakespearean Actor Prepares. New York: Smith and Krauss, 2000.
• Bruder, Melissa and others. A Practical Handbook for the Actor. New York: Random House, 1986.
• Edelstein, Barry. Thinking Shakespeare. New York: Spark Publishing, 2007.
• Lamb, Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare: Children’s Classics . New York: Children’s Classics, 1999.
• Ludwig, Ken. How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare. New York: Broadway Books, 2013.
• No Fear Shakespeare Series (various volumes). New York: Spark Publishing, 2003-present.
ROB’S TOP FIVE (for now…)
• Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human . Whether you love him or hate him (or both, in my case), this book is a classic.
• Edelstein, Barry. Thinking Shakespeare. The best book ever written when it comes to understanding Shakespeare’s plays through acting. I use it in every Shakespeare class I teach.
• Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare . Wonderful introduction to “new historicism” and a great overview of Shakespeare’s age.
• Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare: The Lost Years . Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985. A solid mainstream academic breaks new ground in this look at Shakespeare’s origins.
• Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare’s Language . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000. My favorite literary critic when it comes to Shakespeare.