In 1599, Shakespeare completed Henry V, wrote Julius Caesar and As You Like It, and produced the first draft of Hamlet. In his book, Shapiro, who is professor of English at Columbia University, looks at how the political and social context of the time influenced the work. It’s “a biography of one of the greatest writers who ever lived, about whom we know almost nothing,” she said, and “a biography of the mind of a genius at work.”

There is a worrying circularity about the critical procedure this mandates: non-Shakespearean texts circulated in 1599 are read in search of context for what Shakespeare wrote that year, and then each text Shakespeare wrote that year is read in search of what Shapiro has already identified as its context. Shapiro gives the impression that he studies Elizabethan history only so as to understand Shakespeare and then studies Shakespeare only for his insights into Elizabethan history, and that he wants to confine the meanings of these plays within a museum of what we currently think matters about 1599. It’s an approach to the plays that risks reducing them to journalism and their interpreters to antiquarians: it seems fundamentally to misapprehend how they have gone on working for generations of readers and audiences with precious little interest in the fortunes of Essex or the progress of enclosure. Impeccably researched, the book focuses on how key figures in American history have experienced Shakespeare... A thought-provoking, captivating lesson in how literature and history intermingle."-- KirkusThe winner was chosen by a judging panel comprising of: New Statesman editor-in-chief, Jason Cowley (chair); academic, critic and broadcaster, Shahidha Bari; journalist, author and academic, Sarah Churchwell; and biographer and critic Frances Wilson. Their selection was made from a shortlist of 6 books, taken from the previous 24 prizewinning books. An Interview with James Shapiro", The Literateur interviews James Shapiro on the subject of Shakespeare conspiracy theories and authorship. No discussion of Shakespeare as a "canary in a coal mine" would be complete without mentioning the 2017 production of "Julius Caesar" in New York City's Central Park, which was disrupted by Trump supporters upset at the parallels drawn between the U.S. president-elect and the Roman tyrant who is assassinated. Shapiro, who serves as a consultant for the Public Theater, which stages the free Shakespeare in the Park festival every summer, is uniquely qualified to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at what happened. It's a fascinating story - one of many in this entertaining and accessible book - that underscores Shapiro's key point: Shakespeare never goes out of style." -- Ann Levin, Associated Press One of the 'Best Books of the Year' (Publishers Weekly; The Observer; The Kansas City Star; The Sunday Star Times (NZ);The Financial Times, The Providence Journal; and the Times Literary Supplement)

More than any other Shakespeare biographer, Shapiro emphasises the importance of such revisions. The hero of 1599 is famous for "reworking rather than inventing stories". Shakespeare did not write; he re-wrote. Shapiro's account of Shakespeare's revisions of his own text of Hamlet is complex and interesting. James Shapiro's outstanding 1606 (Faber), in which the Jacobean Shakes­peare gets his due, follow[s] Shapiro's magnificent take on the Elizabethan one in 1599.' Sarah Churchwell, GuardianThis has been an heroic, epic undertaking by our judges. They've had to grapple with some of the most brilliant non-fiction books written in English in the last quarter century and have done so with astonishing seriousness and engagement. It’s wonderful to think that, thanks to these judges, a new generation of readers can discover James Shapiro’s timeless classic.’ The anniversary was also marked by a one-off documentary – All The Best Stories Are True – which explores the very best in non-fiction writing over the past 25 years. From nail-biting moments to life changing stories, the documentary uncovers how the prize started out as the non-fiction rival to the Booker, and what the next 25 years hold for readers and writers in a world now steeped in ‘fake news’. It is available to watch on the Baillie Gifford Prize YouTube this February. James Shapiro's 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear (Faber) brings to dazzling life the world from which sprang the best crop of new plays in theatre history. ' Nicholas Hytner, Observer SHAKESPEARE IN AMERICA: A LITERARY ANTHOLOGY FROM THE REVOLUTION TO NOW, ed. by James Shapiro with a foreword by President Bill Clinton

Peter Singlehurst, partner at Baillie Gifford, commented: "The strapline for the Baillie Gifford Prize is ‘all the best stories are true’. But it is not necessarily their factfulness that makes these books so special, it is the stories about people, ordinary and extraordinary. Choosing one book seems an impossible task and we thank the judges for taking on the unenviable responsibility.” Shapiro said it was “extraordinarily gratifying” that the book is still read and recommended, almost 20 years after it was first published. Over time the prize has been reflecting that changing sense of values and perspectives,” she added. “There have been many more women who have won in recent years; it’s still an overwhelmingly white cohort of winners.”Winkler, Elizabeth (May 2023). Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies. Simon & Schuster. p.326. ISBN 9781982171261. His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the New Statesman, the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic. He has also co-written and presented a pair of BBC documentaries: The King and the Playwright: A Jacobean History (2012) and T he Mysterious Mr. Webster (2014).

Previous Winners of the Samuel Johnson Prize". BBC Four. 5 October 2008. Archived from the original on 5 October 2008 . Retrieved 30 April 2023. It is often said that we know very little about Shakespeare. The truth is that, in jigsaw form, we know a lot. There is a mass of microscopic documentary evidence. Moreover, his work is surrounded by hundreds of extant chronicles, plays, poems and stories, all of which fed the river of his imagination. In addition, there are countless contemporary letters and diaries still yielding secrets. James S. Shapiro (born 1955) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture. First aired in April 2012 as a BBC4 3-hour documentary: “The King and the Playwright: A Jacobean History." Directed by Steven Clarke. Short-listed for the Grierson Award for the Best Historical Documentary, 2012. Now available as a DVD for North American viewers. Shapiro unearths little-known but remarkably rich material on Shakespeare's reception in the United States—from the early 1800s to the present—to illustrate the ways in which Shakespeare has served as a sort of Rorschach test: Everyone, from Abraham Lincoln to John Wilkes Booth, sees what they want in the Bard. In the process they inadvertently reveal their inner selves and cleavages—racism, xenophobia, and class conflict—which remain all too familiar today. The stories are remarkable"—Erika Frye , FortuneRival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-231-07540-5