{"product_id":"9780061555343","title":"Shakespeare: The World as Stage","description":"\u003cp\u003eWilliam Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBryson documents the efforts of earlier scholars, from academics to eccentrics. Emulating the style of his famous travelogues, Bryson records episodes in his research, including a visit to a bunker-like basement room in Washington, D.C., where the world's largest collection of First Folios is housed. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBryson celebrates Shakespeare as a writer of unimaginable talent and enormous inventiveness, a coiner of phrases (\"vanish into thin air,\" \"foregone conclusion,\" \"one fell swoop\") that even today have common currency. His \u003ci\u003eShakespeare\u003c\/i\u003e is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47093236203760,"sku":"9780061555343","price":8.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780061555343_p0.jpg?v=1763620706","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780061555343","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}