Stuart Kells - Shakespeares Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature

The search for Shakespeares library is much more than a treasure hunt, or a case of Shakespeare fetishism. The librarys fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global, twenty-first-century, multi-billion-dollar Shakespeare industry. It bears upon fundamental principles of art, history, meaning and truth.

MILLIONS of words of scholarship have been expended on the worlds most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeares library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions and palaces; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the Bards manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found.

Pursuing the search like the mystery story that it is, acclaimed author Stuart Kells follows the trail of the hunters, taking us through different conceptions of the library and of the man himself. Entertaining and enlightening, Shakespeares Library is a captivating exploration of literatures most enduring enigma.

Theres no doubt we can all learn a lot from the magnificently obsessive and eloquent Kells. Australian

Contents

All literate people are shareholders in Shakespeare, the worlds most famous author. We think of him and his creations as our common property and elemental heritage. We revere his plays and poems, and strive to know the man himself, to understand how he thought and lived, and how he wrote.

In 2018, original manuscripts are perhaps the best way for lovers of literature to get close to writers from the distant past. These handwritten texts tell a story beyond the words. The writing conveys personality and mood: calm and deliberative, or feverish and tumultuous? Sketches and doodles in the margins betray rumination and procrastination. The paper captures and holds something magical from the moment of literary creation. Author manuscripts, letters, source books and, better still, diaries, are pathways for cerebral, tactile and even olfactory connection.

Who could resist connecting in such a way with Shakespeare? Imagine what it would be like to hold his original playscripts. For every species of book person, the idea of Shakespeares libraryhis personal collection of manuscripts, books, letters and other papersis enticing, totemic, a subject of wonder. How did he write? Who inspired him? Who appalled him? To know Shakespeares books is to know Shakespeare the author.

Over the span of four hundred years, people sought his library out: in provincial towns and capital cities; in mansions, palaces, universities and public libraries; in riverbeds, cemeteries, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the landscapes and corridors of the mind. The search became an international one, attracting academics, librarians, bibliographers, entrepreneurs, spirit guides, mystics, cryptographers, archaeologists, symbologists, graphologists, pharmacologists and every kind of opportunistic madman using every kind of technique. In all this time, the search came to nought. Not a trace of his library was found. No books, no manuscripts, no letters, no diaries. The desire to get close to Shakespeare was unrequited, the vacuum palpable.

The search for Shakespeares library is much more than a treasure hunt, or a case of Shakespeare fetishism. The librarys fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global, twenty-first-century, multi-billion-dollar Shakespeare industry. It bears upon fundamental principles of art, history, meaning and truth.

Shakespeares Library retraces the search. It does so by unfolding the search as the mystery story that it is, and by looking through the lens of the searchers themselves. Each searcher sheds light on the scale and scope of Shakespeares library, the kinds of books and manuscripts it contained, and what happened to them and his other documents after he retired from writing and, a few years later, passed away at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. Each searcher corresponds to a different conception of the library and a different conception of Shakespeare himself as an owner and gatherer of books. Workaday editor, gentleman bibliophile, shady frontman. Radical, fugitive, phantom or thief. Pornographer, forger or dupe. Francophile, classicist, lawyer or musician. Romantic or aesthete. Businessman or bumpkin. Librarian or anti-librarian. Author.

The questions about Shakespeares library are closely bound up with the Shakespeare Authorship Questionhow he worked, what he wrote and, most controversially, whether he wrote at all. So much so that, to make any real progress, all these questions must be considered together. The writers library cannot be separated from the extent of his authorial achievement and how it was accomplished. Depending on the answer to the Authorship Question, Shakespeare may have owned hundreds of books and manuscripts, or he may have owned none.

Two regrettable traditions foul the trail we must follow: the long tradition of Shakespeare forgery, and an even longer tradition of bad Shakespearean scholarship. To reach something like the truth, we must walk through noxious territory, consort with cranks and rogues, understand what they are capable of and expose their handiwork. Several searchers examined in this book are especially useful because they help define the mystery of Shakespeares library. Others are valuable because their storiesand their crimesequip us with the tools we need to solve it.

In my book The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders, I described how, in the 1990s, I found by chance an especially rare volume of Elizabethan interest: an anonymously published, blue-paper copy of John Frys Pieces of Ancient Poetry from Unpublished Manuscripts and Scarce Books (1814). Fry was a bookseller and an antiquarian. Always in poor health, he died young, having devoted his short life to the cause of bibliomania. In The Library I explained how that find led my wife, Fiona, and me into a bookish life, and how it prompted us to join the search for Shakespeares library. Over the years, as authors, historians and affiliates of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, Fiona and I would make other remarkable finds, and we would assemble a unique collection of John Fry volumes, which would form the nucleus of our own library. Throughout those years, the lifes work of a young bookseller from Bristol, long dead, would be our example and our guide in the quest to solve the greatest mystery in literature.

More than four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare led an intriguing life. By all accounts he was a fun guy moving in a fun circle. One member of his London entourage, John Florio, is remembered as a consummate editor who gave the English language such indispensable phrases as higgledy-piggledy and helter-skelter. Shakespeare himself is blamed for blood-stained, eyeball, fancy free, seamy, zany and hundreds of other poetic and prosaic innovations.

A street-brawling, heart-breaking actor and grungy man of letters, the Shakespeare who emerges drinking and smoking from contemporary documents is a kind of punk poet, a proto-rockstar, a sixteenth-century Russell Crowe, or Russell Brand. Few documents about Shakespeares life have survived, but a surprisingly high proportion of them concern his racy and bawdy exploits. When, for example, he got into trouble with a brothel keeper and two young women, his fearsome conduct was documented vividly in a writ. Another notorious incident followed a performance of the play we now call