Living with Shakespeare

Shakespeare's life in the 1590s in the parish of St. Helens, Bishopsgate Street, and an examination of his parish and his neighbours, who included the radical 'Paracelsian' doctors, musicians, public figures and international merchants

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This book unearths a section (c. 1593-1598) of Shakespeare's life, as he turned 30. It takes a new theoretical approach by studying Shakespeare as a parishioner and by examining the approximately 100 families who lived in his parish. Marsh demonstrates how Shakespeare's neighbours' interests, work and connections formed part of the background environment that Shakespeare probably borrowed from, in the same way as he reworked existing stories. The parish was half female, 15% were French/Dutch, 7% musicians, one was Lord Mayor and there was the historian John Stow, 'spy/operator' Henry Maunder and composer Thomas Morley. One was arguably the world's greatest playwright but on Sunday, in church, he would have been just another parishioner.