'You are a genuine soaker in Shakespeare, and have not read him as a task. You have him by heart.'-Bernard Shaw wrote in a letter to Hesketh Pearson. Before he became a well-known biographer, Hesketh Pearson was an actor. Few facts are known about Shakespeare, but with an actor's eye and a supreme self-confidence, Pearson has drawn a recognizable portrait of Shakespeare the man-even telling us the colour of his hair and of his predilection for black-haired women. The plays and poems are assessed in the search to discover and build up a picture of Shakespeare's character. Pearson has included an anthology of his favorite lines and passages.
