The late Mr. Shakespeare / Robert Nye.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nye, Robert.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Fiction.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Actors.

Theater.

History.

Dramatists, English.

Dramatists, English--Early modern.

England.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--History--Elizabeth, 1558-1603--Fiction.

Great Britain--History--James I, 1603-1625--Fiction.

Dramatists, English--Early modern, 1500-1700--Fiction.

Theater--England--History--16th century--Fiction.

Theater--England--History--17th century--Fiction.

Actors--England--Fiction.

Genre:

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Biographical fiction.

Physical Description:

398 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Other Title:

Late Mister Shakespeare

Place of Publication:

New York : Arcade Pub., 1999.

Summary:

From the pen of the writer whom Peter Ackroyd called "one of our best living novelists" comes a work that is rich, strange, and wonderful. Welcomed in Shakespeare's own land as the most original, exciting, and provocative novel about the playwright since Anthony Burgess's classic Nothing Like the Sun, Robert Nye's The Late Mr. Shakespeare is a literary event.

Our guide to the life of the Bard is an actor by the name of Robert Reynolds, known also as Pickleherring. Pickleherring asserts that as a boy he was not only an original member of Shakespeare's acting troupe but played the greatest female roles, from Cleopatra through Portia. In an attic above a brothel in Restoration London--a half century after Shakespeare has departed the stage--Pickleherring, now an ancient man, sits down to write the full story of his former friend, mentor, and master. Ancient he may be, but fond, faithful Pickleherring has forgotten not one jot, and using sources both firsthand and far-fetched, he means to set the record straight. Gentle readers will learn much that will open their eyes.

One by one, chapter by chapter, Pickleherring teases out all the theories that have been embroidered around Shakespeare over the centuries: Did he really write his own plays? Who was the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Did Shakespeare die a Catholic? What did he do during the so-called lost years, before he went to London to write plays? What were the last words Shakespeare uttered on his deathbed? Was Shakespeare ever in love? Pickleherring turns speculation and fact into stories, each bringing us inexorably closer to Shakespeare the man--complex, contradictory, breathing, vibrant. Robert Nye has given us an outrageously bawdy, language-loving, and edifying romp through the life and times of the greatest writer who ever lived. The Late Mr. Shakespeare proves how alive he was.

Contents:

I In which Pickleherring takes his pen to tell of his first meeting with Mr Shakespeare 1

II In which Pickleherring makes strides in a pair of lugged boots 5

III Pickleherring's Acknowledgements 8

IV About John Shakespeare and the miller's daughter 13

V How to spell Shakespeare and what a whittawer is 15

VI About the begetting of William Shakespeare 19

VII All the facts about Mr Shakespeare 23

VIII Which is mostly about choughs but has no choughs in it 25

IX About the birth of Mr WS 29

X What if Bretchgirdle was Shakespeare's father? 33

XII Of WS: his first word, & the otters 43

XIII Was John Shakespeare John Falstaff? 47

XIV How Shakespeare's mother played with him 51

XV What this book is doing 54

XVI Shakespeare breeches 56

XVII Pickleherring's room (in which he is writing this book) 62

XVIII The Man in the Moon, or Pickleherring in praise of country history 66

XIX Positively the last word about whittawers 70

XX What if Queen Elizabeth was Shakespeare's mother? 73

XXI The Shakespeare Arms 81

XXII Pickleherring's Song 85

XXIII About the childhood ailments of William Shakespeare 88

XXIV About the great plague that was late in London 90

XXV Bretchgirdle's cat 94

XXVI Of the games of William Shakespeare when he was young 96

XXVII The midwife Gertrude's tale 99

XXVIII Of little WS and the cauldron of inspiration & science 102

XXIX Some tales that William Shakespeare told his mother 107

XXX What Shakespeare learned at Stratford Grammar School 110

XXXI About Pompey Bum + Pickleherring's Shakespeare Test 116

XXXII Did Shakespeare go to school at Polesworth? 119

XXXIII Why John Shakespeare liked to be called Jack 121

XXXIV What Shakespeare saw when he looked under Clopton Bridge 125

XXXV About water 127

XXXVI Of weeds and the original Ophelia 130

XXXVII The revels at Kenilworth 9th July, 1575 136

XXXVIII More about Jenkins 144

XXXIX John Shakespeare when sober 147

XL Jack Naps of Greece: his story 151

XLI Jack Naps of Greece: his story concluded 160

XLII Flute 164

XLIII The speech that Shakespeare made when he killed a calf 165

XLIV In which there is a death, and a birth, and an earthquake 167

XLV Pickleherring's peep-hole 172

XLVI About silk stockings 176

XLVII How Shakespeare went to teach in Lancashire 179

XLVIII How Shakespeare went to sea with Francis Drake 181

XLIX How Shakespeare went to work in a lawyer's office 184

L How Shakespeare went to the wars & sailed the seas (again?) & took a long walk in the Forest of Arden & captured a castle 187

LI Pickleherring's confession 191

LII In which Anne Hathaway 195

LIII Shakespeare's other Anne 201

LIV Pickleherring's nine muses 204

LV In which John Shakespeare plays Shylock 209

LVI In which Lucy is lousy 212

LVII Shakespeare's Canopy, or Pickleherring in dispraise of wine 215

LVIII Pickleherring's Poetics (some more about this book) 218

LIX What Shakespeare did when first he came to London 220

LX In which Pickleherring eats an egg in honour of Mr Shakespeare 225

LXI In which Pickleherring speculates concerning the meaning of eggs 227

LXII About Mr Richard Field: another ruminating gentleman 230

LXIII About a great reckoning in a little room 233

LXIV More 238

LXV A look at William Shakespeare 244

LXVI Pickleherring's list of the world's lost plays 246

LXVII Love's Labour's Won 248

LXVIII Was Shakespeare raped? 252

LXIX All about Rizley 257

LXX A Private Observation 262

LXXI In which Pickleherring presents a lost sonnet by William Shakespeare 268

LXXII Who was Shakespeare's Friend? 270

LXXIII The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 1 275

LXXIV The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 2 277

LXXV The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 3 281

LXXVI The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 4 285

LXXVII The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 5 289

LXXVIII Of eggs and Richard Burbage 297

LXXIX A few more facts and fictions about William Shakespeare 302

LXXX In which boys will be girls 307

LXXXI In which Mr Shakespeare is mocked by his fellows 312

LXXXII Pickleherring's poem 317

LXXXIII In which Mr Shakespeare plays a game at tennis 321

LXXXIV What Shakespeare got from Florio + a word about George Peele 326

LXXXV Deaths, etc. 332

LXXXVI 'Mrs Lines and Mr Barkworth' 336

LXXXVII Shakespeare in Scotland & other witchcrafts 342

LXXXVIII About Comfort Ballantine 348

LXXXIX In which Pickleherring plays Cleopatra at the house in St John Street 351

XC Tom o' Bedlam's Song 356

XCI In which William Shakespeare returns to Stratford 361

XCII Bottoms 368

XCIII Some sayings of William Shakespeare 370

XCIV A word about John Spencer Stockfish 373

XCV Pickleherring's list of things despaired of 375

XCVI Shakespeare's Will (with notes by Pickleherring) 378

XCVII Fire 382

XCVIII The day Shakespeare died (with his last words, etc.) 384

XCIX About the funeral of William Shakespeare & certain events thereafter 389

C In which Pickleherring lays down his pen after telling of the curse on Shakespeare's grave 396.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

1559704691

OCLC:

40298516