Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

Named One of Esquire’s 50 Best Biographies of All Time

The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, reissued with a new afterword for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

A young man from a small provincial town moves to London in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.

The fullest and most brilliant account ever written of Shakespeare’s life, his work and his age — now reissued with a 400th anniversary afterword

International Editions

Will in the World has been translated into multiple languages, reaching readers around the world.

Chinese Simplified Will in the World 2007

Chinese Traditional Will in the World 2013

English UK Will in the World 2016 reissue

Finnish Will in the World paperback 2016

Portuguese Brazil Will in the World 2004

Praise for Will in the World

“The most complexly intelligent and sophisticated, and yet the most keenly enthusiastic, study of the life and work taken together that I have ever read.”

— Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

“Vividly written, richly detailed, and insightful from first chapter to last…certain to secure a place among the essential studies of the greatest of all writers.”

— William E. Cain, Boston Sunday Globe

“Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time.”

— Adam Morgan, Esquire

“A dazzling and subtle biography.”

— Richard Lacayo, Time

“A magnificent achievement.”

— Denis Donoghue, Wall Street Journal

“So engrossing, clearheaded, and lucid that its arrival is not just welcome but cause for celebration.”

— Dan Cryer, Newsday

“An exceptionally well-told tale, an engrossing page-turner, in fact.”

— Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

“Greenblatt takes the bits we do know, nourishes them with a thorough understanding of the Elizabethan world Shakespeare inhabited, and then coaxes each bud of information to flower within our understanding of the plays.… Only a churl would be unpersuaded by it.”

— Laura Miller, Salon