‘Katherine Duncan-Jones...has given much energy and expertise over the years to showing that it was the other, less lyrical, shrewd-headed Shakespeare we glimpse in county archives and Chancery documents who secured the success and eventual apotheosis of ‘Gentle Shakespeare,' the poet commemorated by a fine folio edition of his works in 1623. Duncan-Jones' Shakespeare is Shakespeare the survivor, the tradesman's son with no university credentials and no connections in high places...This new book is valuable for its revaluation of previous material (from Ungentle Shakespeare) its greater conciseness and its updated research...(which) allows Duncan-Jones to drawn the line she sees in Shakespeare's life more sharply......Her writing is immersed in close textual detail, yet there is still a strong, overriding sense of Shakespeare's presence in his various milieus...(Duncan-Jones has) an astute touch.'