Shakespeare's Library

January 15, 2019
A Shakespeare scholar takes on the "biggest enigma in literature."Shortly after William Shakespeare died in 1616, friends and scholars began looking for his books, figuring that he must have had many. Shakespeare was notorious for borrowing plots and characters from histories and literary works. Where were these source books? Shakespeare's brief will makes no mention of them. This is the premise of historian and award-winning author Kells' (The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, 2018, etc.) look "through the lens of the searchers themselves," a search that "bears upon fundamental principles of art, history, meaning and truth." It's an engaging and provocative contribution to the unending world of Shakesperiana. On his wide-ranging journey, Kells discovered many intriguing clues, but the mystery of the missing library remains unsolved. The author notes that besides a missing library, there were no manuscripts, letters, or diaries. This leads to his insightful discussion of the " 'Shakespeare Authorship Question'--how he worked, what he wrote and, most controversially, whether he wrote at all." Kells takes on the detractors with gusto, especially those promoting Shakespeare's contemporary, the diplomat Sir Henry Neville. Along the way, the author entertains us with a fascinating publishing history of the plays and stories of famous book collectors. "To reach something like the truth," he writes, "we must walk through noxious territory, consort with cranks and rogues." Kells also provides a revealing assessment of the famous 1623 First Folio, the first collection of the plays. Authoritative? It's an "unreliable source," Kells writes. "Posthumous, incomplete, error-ridden; produced by piratical publishers and hidden editors." He concludes with the tantalizing Littlewood Letter, "arguably the most important Shakespeare letter in the world today--provided, of course, it is genuine." On the whole, Kells delivers reams of arcane bibliographical information with humor and wit.Even though the narrative bogs down in the middle under the figurative weight of bibliomania, overall, this is an enchanting work that bibliophiles will savor and Shakespeare fans adore.

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April 1, 2019

William Shakespeare's works draw on hundreds of writers, from the classics to his contemporaries. According to Kells (Penguin and the Lane Brothers, The Library), the Bard's Stratford house, New Place, had a study with books in the 1630s. Yet none of Shakespeare's personal volumes have ever been found, and only three pages of his actual manuscripts. Kells's account of the search for Shakespeare's library leads through many fascinating bypaths of book history. He recounts the forgeries of William-Henry Ireland, who "discovered" new manuscript versions of "Hamblette" and the "Tragedye of Kynge Leare" and even an entirely new play, Vortigern. Kells discusses some of the well-known bibliophiles of the early 19th century, among them John Ker, third Duke of Roxburghe; George John, second Earl Spencer; and more obscure figures, such as the clergyman Francis Wrangham, as well as Shakespeare scholars George Steevens and John Payne Collier (also a forger). While no one has yet found Shakespeare's library, Kells hopes new leads may yet surface. The work takes an unfortunate detour into the Cloud Cuckoo Land of the authorship question, claiming Ben Jonson and John Florio greatly improved Shakespeare's mediocre plays. VERDICT Still, an enjoyable excursion into Shakespearean (and non-Shakespearean) booklore.--Joseph Rosenblum, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2019
Upon seeing recently discovered documents from Shakespeare's personal library, the eighteenth-century biographer James Boswell kissed each item, declaring, I shall now die contented. Kells never says whether Boswell turned in his grave when the cache was exposed as fraudulent one year after his death. But as Kells brings to life the participants in the four-century quest to find the Bard's fugitive library, readers learn a great deal about the enigmatic legacy of England's greatest poet. Though scholars have identified sources Shakespeare drew from in his plays and poems, their efforts to find the writer's manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, or books have yielded nothing except a fascinating history of their own leave-no-stone-unturned search. Kells skewers those who have made the absence of manuscripts from Shakespeare's pen their opening for theories of how Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, or Henry Neville actually authored the Shakespearean corpus. Still, the iconic image of the flawless Bard loses credibility in Kells' riveting account of a streetwise poet who rarely missed a trick as he made his fortune in the rough-and-tumble world of Elizabethan drama and book publishing. This savvy operator left to mysterious other hands the task of collecting and editing his works for posterity. To read, or not to read? Here, there's no question!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)