Shakespeare's England: Life in Elizabethan and Jacobean Times

This lively anthology of extracts from Elizabethan and Jacobean books. plays, letters, state documents. diaries and pamphlets produced during Shakespeare's lifetime presents a vivid picture of English life during the great bard's lifetime. A wide range of contributors have been selected, including Camden and Finesse Morison (on descriptions of England), Nuchae (on low-life), Gascoigne (on court romances), Bacon (on intellectual life), Hooker (on Elizabethan, order), Raleigh (on death), Stubbes (on a Puritan's view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Deicer (on crime), Scot and Harsnet (on witches), Donne (on witty meditations), and James I (on tobacco). Accounts of theatre-going, May Day celebrations, Elizabeth at court, political events (trial of Mary Queen of Scots, the Essex rebellion, the Gunpowder Plot), home life; London merchants, education, medicine, garden books and herbals, food, drink, religion are also included.

R. E. Pritchard was formerly a lecturer in English at Keele University where he specialized in Renaissance literature.