IN 1762, it already appeared in print as the “Place of Shakspear’s Nativ­ity”; but it would not be until the 19th century that a Stratford-Upon-Avon house that is the pre-eminent place of Shakespearean pil­grimage was bought on the nation’s behalf and saved from fall­ing into private or, worse, foreign hands.

Richard Schoch’s Shake­speare’s House: A window onto his life and legacy tells a more engaging tale, from the 1560s onwards, than its sober cover de­­sign may suggest. It offers a lively account of Shake­speare’s Birthplace, and not least of the auction drama of 1847.

By a curious and typically Vic­torian irony, conserva­tion involved the destruction of heritage, as ad­­jacent properties, themselves of his­tor­ical interest, were pulled down be­­cause they made the Birthplace look too ordinary. The book has a section of 25 black-and-white plates. The author is Professor of Drama at Queen’s University Belfast.

Shake­speare’s House: A window onto his life and legacy
Richard Schoch
The Arden Shakespeare, Bloomsbury £25
978-1-350-40935-4
Church Times Bookshop £22.50