<div><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 27.5pt">T</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">his volume in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Writers Lives </i>series offers a reassessment of Shakespeare and his creative output from his earliest work through his ‘mature' drama and the late plays, taking into account our current knowledge of Shakespeare's biography and consensus on key textual, critical and theatrical issues.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span> <br/><p style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class=MsoNormal><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">William Baker offers a comprehensive but accessible introduction to Shakespeare's </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">work and places it in the contexts of what is known of his life and activities. Avoiding </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">speculation of a biographical, critical or textual nature, he focuses instead on an </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">account of what is known of Shakespeare and his achievement at the end of the first </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt">decade of the twenty-first century.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br/><p style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none" class=MsoNormal><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span> </p></div>>