'Enjoyable, lively … such a pleasure to read … renders the drama of Shakespeare’s contemporaries more than fringe entertainment’ Independent

Shakespeare is one of the greatest of all English figures, considered a genius for all time. Yet as this enthralling book shows, he was at heart a man of the theatre, one among a community of artists in the teeming world of Renaissance London – from the enigmatic spy Christopher Marlowe to the self-aggrandizing Ben Jonson, from the actor Richard Burbage to the brilliant Thomas Middleton. By bringing Shakespeare’s contemporaries to life, Shakespeare & Co throws fresh new light on the man himself.

‘Warm, cheerful, generous … Wells sketches a whole gallery of Shakespeare’s fellow playwrights … He brings each vividly to life, making you feel that you’ve met them personally in some Blackfriars tavern’ Simon Callow

‘It was a time and place teeming with excitement, anecdote and incident, and Wells, in this richly enjoyable work, brings it to life with a novelist’s sense of the telling detail’ Dominic Dromgoole

‘Enthralling’ Observer

‘This is one of the most sane and exciting books on Shakespeare I have read for a long time’ Scotland on Sunday

Foreword by Joseph Fiennes

This book offers a dazzling kaleidoscope of Shakespeare's inner and outer worlds - a brilliant set of imagined answers to gently probing questions, on such topics as his schooldays, his experiences of the theatre, his life in Stratford and London, his sonnets, his rivalry with other playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, his love life, his sources of inspiration, and his attitudes to money and publication.