This "multiple biography" follows the quest throughout history for knowledge of Shakespeare the man. The author has collected information gleaned from the early formal lives, biographical notes in 18th-century editions, newspapers, magazines, miscellanies, prefaces to popular collections and encyclopaedia entries. In addition, Professor Schoenbaum documents the theories of amateurs, eccentrics and cranks. For this revised edition, the author has throughout added new material and in his epilogue surveys the work of the generation which has elapsed since the book was first published.