Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 2 of 2]

by Nathan Drake

Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

Nathan Drake, a Suffolk physician and literary essayist, published Shakspeare and His Times in two volumes in 1817, one of the first attempts to set the poet in the whole life of his age. This second volume covers Shakespeare in London and in retirement. It opens with the dedications of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece to the Earl of Southampton and a critique of the poems, proposes a new chronology of the plays with a discussion of each, examines the sonnets and the identity of their addressee, surveys the drama and the theaters of Elizabethan and Jacobean London, and follows Shakespeare home to Stratford, printing his will in an appendix. Much has been superseded; the sweep remains. It is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, with the first chapter free.