Following his international bestsellers ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ and ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’, Bill Bryson has written, with his usual inimitable wit and intelligence, a short biography of William Shakespeare for the Eminent Lives series – which seeks to pair great subjects with writers known for their strong sensibilities and sharp, lively points of view. Shakespeare’s life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard – from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.

Bill Bryson’s internationally bestselling books include ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ (shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize), ‘A Walk in the Woods’, ‘Neither Here Nor There’, ‘Made in America’, ‘Notes from a Small Island’, ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ and, most recently, ‘At Home’. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he now lives in Norfolk with his wife and four children.