The Life of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A Critical Biography -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- List of Abbreviations -- The Shakespeare Family Tree -- 1 "Born into the World": 1564-1571 -- Birth and Baptism -- William Shakespeare's Name -- John and Mary Shakespeare -- Stratford -- The Imaginative World -- Notes -- 2 "Nemo SibiNascitur": 1571-1578 -- Grammar School -- The Books -- Role Models -- Becoming a Writer -- Becoming an Actor -- Recognition -- Notes -- 3 "Hic et Ubique": 1578-1588 -- John Shakespeare's Finances -- Shakespeare After School -- Theater in the 1580s -- Marriage and Children -- Notes -- 4 "This Man's Art and That Man's Scope": 1588-1592 -- The Playwriting Business and Henslowe -- Playwrights of the 1580s -- Art and Scope and Shakespeare -- Notes -- 5 "Tigers' Hearts": 1592-1593 -- The Early Quartos: Competing Theories -- History and the Henry VI Plays -- 1 Henry VI -- 2 and 3 Henry VI -- Actors vs Playwrights -- Titus Andronicus -- Notes -- 6 "The Dangerous Year": 1593-1594 -- Venus and Adonis -- Summer 1593 -- Lucrece -- WS and HW -- The Early Sonnets -- Notes -- 7 "Our Usual Manager of Mirth": 1594-1595 -- Theater Companies of 1594 -- Shakespeare the Actor -- The Taming of the Shrew -- The Two Gentlemen of Verona -- The Comedy of Errors -- Writing for the Lord Chamberlain's Men -- Notes -- 8 "The Strong'st and Surest Way to Get": Histories, 1595-1596 -- Richard III -- Edward III -- King John -- Richard II -- Notes -- 9 "When Love Speaks": Tragedy and Comedy, 1595-1596 -- Romeo and Juliet -- A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Love's Labour's Lost -- "Every Word Doth Almost Tell My Name" -- Notes -- 10 "You Had a Father -- Let Your Son Say So": 1596-1598 -- The Coat of Arms and Hamnet Shakespeare -- 1 Henry IV -- The Merchant of Venice -- No Place and New Place -- The Merry Wives of Windsor -- 2 Henry IV.

Much Ado About Nothing -- The After-Effects of Grief -- Notes -- 11 "Unworthy Scaffold": 1598-1599 -- Ben Jonson -- The Scaffold and the Globe -- Satire and Satiric Drama -- As You Like It -- Julius Caesar -- Henry V -- Notes -- 12 "These Words Are Not Mine": 1599-1601 -- Recognition: Palladis Tamia and The Passionate Pilgrim -- Quotation: Belvedere, England's Parnassus, and the Parnassus Plays -- Appropriation: The Essex Rebellion -- Attribution: Love's Martyr -- Revision: Sir Thomas More -- Notes -- 13 "Looking Before and After": 1600-1603 -- Hamlet -- Stratford Land -- Twelfth Night -- Troilus and Cressida -- The End of the Reign -- Notes -- 14 "This Most Balmy Time": 1603-1605 -- Welcoming the New Reign -- The 1603/1604 Season -- The King's Playwright? -- Measure for Measure -- Othello -- King Lear -- Macbeth -- Notes -- 15 "Past the Size of Dreaming": 1606-1609 -- "Late Style" -- All's Well That Ends Well -- Timon of Athens -- Guarini and Tragicomedy -- Antony and Cleopatra -- Pericles -- Coriolanus -- Events in Stratford, Events in London -- Notes -- 16 "Like an Old Tale": 1609-1611 -- Embarrassments of 1609: Troilus and Cressida, "Shakespeare's Sonnets," and Pericles -- The Masque -- Cymbeline -- The Winter's Tale -- The Tempest -- Notes -- 17 "The Second Burden": 1612-1616 -- John Fletcher and Cardenio -- Henry VIII and Its Aftermath -- The Two Noble Kinsmen -- Last Years -- The Survivors -- Notes -- 18 "In the Mouths of Men": 1616 and After -- The Folio of 1623 -- Actors, Biographers, and Editors -- Performance -- Cornucopian Shakespeare: Criticism - and Everything Else -- Memorializing Shakespeare: National and Global -- Conclusion: Myth and "Genius" -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.