The search for Shakespeare’s library is much more than a treasure hunt, or a case of Shakespeare fetishism. The library’s fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global, twenty-first-century, multi-billion-dollar Shakespeare industry. It bears upon fundamental principles of art, history, meaning and truth.
MILLIONS of words of scholarship have been expended on the world’s most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare’s library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions and palaces; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bard’s manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found.
Pursuing the search like the mystery story that it is, acclaimed author Stuart Kells follows the trail of the hunters, taking us through different conceptions of the library and of the man himself. Entertaining and enlightening, Shakespeare’s Library is a captivating exploration of literature’s most enduring enigma.
‘There’s no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells.’ Australian