Published in the wake of the quatercentenary of Shakespeare’s death, The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography focuses on Shakespeare’s life, yet from a different vantage point. There is a long tradition of biographies about Shakespeare, either as sections or as separate works, which starts with John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (1669-96), and continues with Nicholas Rowe’s The Works of Mr. William Shakespear (1709), Alexander Pope’s The Works of Shakespear (1723-5), Samuel Johnson’s The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765), Edmond Malone’s The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (1790), John Payne Collier’s New Facts Regarding the Life of Shakespeare (1835), Lee Sidney’s The Life of William Shakespeare (1898), Frank Harris’s The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life-Story (1909), E. K. Chambers’s William Shakespeare

Published in the wake of the quatercentenary of Shakespeare’s death, The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography focuses on Shakespeare’s life, yet from a different vantage point. There is a long tradition of biographies about Shakespeare, either as sections or as separate works, which starts with John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (1669-96), and continues with Nicholas Rowe’s The Works of Mr. William Shakespear (1709), Alexander Pope’s The Works of Shakespear (1723-5), Samuel Johnson’s The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765), Edmond Malone’s The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare (1790), John Payne Collier’s New Facts Regarding the Life of Shakespeare (1835), Lee Sidney’s The Life of William Shakespeare (1898), Frank Harris’s The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life-Story (1909), E. K. Chambers’s William Shakespeare