A Life of Shakespeare
Written by Hesketh Pearson
Narrated by Simon Russell Beale, David Timson, Caroline Faber and Daniel Philpott
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Hesketh Pearson
Born in 1887 at Hawford, Worcesterhire, Hesketh Pearson was educated at Bedford Grammar School, then worked in a shipping Office and spent two years in America before beginning a career as an actor in 1911. Until 1931 he worked successfully in the theatre, which provided many insights for his subsequent writing career. Pearson’s early works included ‘Modern Men and Mummers’ which consisted of sketches of well-known figures in the theatre, and also short stories in ‘Iron Rations’. ‘Doctor Darwin’, a biography of Darwin which was published in 1930, was widely acclaimed and established him as one of the leading popular biographers of his day. Subsequently he concentrated on his writing full-time. However, for a period of some seven years he was in the doldrums, following an unsuccessful attempt to get the title ‘Whispering Gallery’ published. He nonetheless persisted, and subsequently had published several important biographies of major figures, such as Conan Doyle, Gilbert and Sullivan and George Bernard Shaw. His skill and expertise was widely recognised, such that for example he was able to gain the co-operation of Shaw, who both contributed and later wrote a critique of his biography, and the executors of Conan Doyle’s estate who gave Pearson unprecedented access to private papers. Pearson was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 1964. His biographies have stood the test of time and are still regarded as definitive works on their subjects.
More audiobooks from Hesketh Pearson
Arthur Conan Doyle, A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life of Oscar Wilde Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to A Life of Shakespeare
Related audiobooks
The Life of the Author: Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Age of Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lear: The Great Image of Authority Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare's Globe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Giants of Irish Literature: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups: Everything You Need to Know About the Bard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Blest Genius: The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare 2nd Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWill in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Othello Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hamlet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anonymous Shake-Speare: The Man Behind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Midsummer Night's Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Macbeth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poetry of Robert Southey: Poems from the Bristol born Oxford graduate and Poet Laureate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHamlet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMacbeth: A Dagger of the Mind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare: Ten Great Comedies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Falstaff: Give Me Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Speeches & Soliloquies of Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Iago: The Strategies of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stories from Shakespeare – The Plantagenets: With Excerpts from the Plays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The History of English Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Biographies For You
The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angela's Ashes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marriage Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shakespeare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Papillon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rude Talk in Athens: Ancient Rivals, the Birth of Comedy, and a Writer's Journey through Greece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lit: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Life of Shakespeare
9 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The cadillac of biographers. I can't believe that I'm on a list of one. Look at the list of Pearson's subjects.