BLP-Spring-2015-Catalogue

NEW TITLESThis generously illustrated book also examines theafterlife of these three images, as memorials, inadvertising and in graphic art, together with theiradaptation in later commemorative statues: allevidence of a continuing desire to put a face toone of the most famous names in literature.128 pages, 220 x 173 mm40 colour illustrationsISBN: 978 1 85124 405 8Paperback, £14.99June 2015Katherine Duncan-Jones is an Emeritus Fellowof Somerville College, Oxford. She has writtenbiographies of Sir Philip Sidney (1991) andShakespeare (2001; revised edition, 2010); andhas edited Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1997) and(with H.R. Woudhuysen) the same writer’s Poems(2007), both for the Arden Shakespeare series.Portraits of ShakespeareKatherine Duncan-JonesWithin Shakespeare’s lifetime there was alreadysome curiosity about what the writer of suchbrilliant poems, sonnets and plays looked like.Yet like so much else about him, Shakespeare’sappearance is mysterious.Why is it so difficult to find images of him thatwere definitely made during his life? Whichimages are most likely to have been made bythose close to Shakespeare, and why do thesediffer from each other? Also, why do newly‘discovered’ images claimed as representations ofthe playwright emerge with such regularity?Shakespeare scholar Katherine Duncan-Jonesexamines these questions, beginning with ananalysis of the tradition of the ‘author portrait’before, during, and after Shakespeare’s life. Sheprovides a detailed critique of the three imagesof Shakespeare likeliest to derive from life-timeportrayals: the bust in Holy Trinity Church,Stratford-upon-Avon; the ‘Droeshout engraving’from the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s playspublished in 1623; and the ‘Chandos portrait’,painted in oil on canvas in the early seventeenthcentury. Through a fresh exploration of theevidence and groundbreaking research, sheidentifies a plausible new candidate for the painterof ‘Chandos’. This also throws new light on thelast years of Shakespeare’s life.6