"So engrossing, clearheaded, and lucid that its arrival is not just welcome but cause for celebration."—Dan Cryer, Newsday Stephen Greenblatt, the charismatic Harvard professor who "knows more about Shakespeare than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did" (John Leonard, Harper's ), has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life; full of drama and pageantry, and also cruelty and danger; could have become the world's greatest playwright. A young man from the provinces—a man without wealth, connections, or university education—moves to London. In a remarkably short time he becomes the greatest playwright not just of his age but of all time. His works appeal to urban sophisticates and first-time theatergoers; he turns politics into poetry; he recklessly mingles vulgar clowning and philosophical subtlety. How is such an achievement to be explained?

Will in the World interweaves a searching account of Elizabethan England with a vivid narrative of the playwright's life. We see Shakespeare learning his craft, starting a family, and forging a career for himself in the wildly competitive London theater world, while at the same time grappling with dangerous religious and political forces that took less-agile figures to the scaffold. Above all, we never lose sight of the great works— A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth , and more—that continue after four hundred years to delight and haunt audiences everywhere. The basic biographical facts of Shakespeare's life have been known for over a century, but now Stephen Greenblatt shows how this particular life history gave rise to the world's greatest writer. Bringing together little-known historical facts and little-noticed elements of Shakespeare's plays, Greenblatt makes inspired connections between the life and the works and deliver "a dazzling and subtle biography" (Richard Lacayo, Time ). Readers will experience Shakespeare's vital plays again as if for the first time, but with greater understanding and appreciation of their extraordinary depth and humanity.

A Best Book of the Year : The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2004; Time magazine's #1 Best Nonfiction Book; A Washington Post Book World Rave ; An Economist Best Book ; A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book;A Christian Science Monitor Best Book; A Chicago Tribune Best Book; A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Best Book ; NPR's Maureen Corrigan's Best. 16 pages of color illustrations

斯蒂芬·格林布蘭特，著名的文學批評傢、理論傢，當代西方學術界新曆史主義批語流派的泰鬥級人物，近二十年來最有影響力的莎學傢之一。現任哈佛大學人文學教授、美國藝術與科學學院成員。2000年，被哈佛大學校長任命為John Cogan學院教授，係哈佛大學教授頭銜中的最高榮譽，僅有19名哈佛教授獲此殊榮，專門從事跨越傳統學科界限的前沿性學術研究。作者獲得哈佛大學教授頭銜中的最高榮譽時，正在從事兩個研究項目，本書就是其中一個項目的研究成果。曾在牛津大學、柏林大學、東京大學、北京大學等世界知名大學任客座教授。曾發錶幾十篇學術論文，齣版十餘部學術著作，並多次獲奬。他在莎學方麵的代錶作有《文藝復興時期的自我塑造——從莫爾到莎士比亞》（1980）、《莎士比亞式的協商：文藝復興時期英國的社會能量的流通》（1988）等等。2004年齣版即榮登《紐約時報》十佳圖書榜的《俗世威爾——莎士比亞新傳》是他最新的莎學研究成果，該書齣版後引起很大反響，好評如潮。