Shakespeare and Co. Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story

"Enjoyable, lively ...such a pleasure to read ...renders the drama of Shakespeare's contemporaries more than fringe entertainment." - "Independent". Shakespeare is one of the greatest of all English figures, considered a genius for all time. Yet as this enthralling book shows, he was at heart a man of the theatre, one among a community of artists in the teeming world of Renaissance London - from the enigmatic spy Christopher Marlowe to the self-aggrandizing Ben Jonson, from the actor Richard Burbage to the brilliant Thomas Middleton. By bringing Shakespeare's contemporaries to life, "Shakespeare & Co" throws fresh new light on the man himself. "Warm, cheerful, generous ...Wells sketches a whole gallery of Shakespeare's fellow playwrights ...He brings each vividly to life, making you feel that you've met them personally in some Blackfriars tavern" - Simon Callow. "It was a time and place teeming with excitement, anecdote and incident, and Wells, in this richly enjoyable work, brings it to life with a novelist's sense of the telling detail" - "Dominic Dromgoole". "Enthralling" - "Observer. "This is one of the most sane and exciting books on Shakespeare I have read for a long time" - "Scotland on Sunday".