Audiobook Drake, Nathan Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2]

Nathan Drake undertakes a comprehensive exploration of the Elizabethan era, using the life and biography of William Shakespeare as the central pivot for a broader cultural history. The first volume is divided into two distinct parts: the poet's early life in Stratford-upon-Avon and his subsequent migration to London. Drake begins with the genealogy of the Shakespeare family, the orthography of the name, and the documented facts of his birth, education at the free-school, and marriage to Anne Hathaway. Following these biographical foundations, the author constructs a detailed panorama of rural life in Warwickshire.

He delineates the various classes of society, ranging from the country-gentleman and the substantial yeoman down to the humble copyholder and the plain country boor, while also examining the roles of the country clergyman and the schoolmaster. A significant portion of the work is dedicated to the popular customs, rural holidays, festivals, and superstitions that formed the texture of daily existence in early modern England, including New Year's tide, Twelfth Night, Plough-Monday, Shrovetide, and Easter. Drake interweaves these social descriptions with literary criticism and historical accounts, drawing extensively upon contemporary sources such as Harrison, Tusser, and Holinshed. The volume concludes with Shakespeare's departure from Stratford for the capital around the year sixteen hundred and eighty-six, and his initial introduction to the London stage as an actor and emerging poet.