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Shakespeare is the true British icon - he is still the most performed, the most translated, the most venerated playwright in history, and a man whose reputation, if anything, is in the ascendant. No one has resolved so many truths about the human heart, or so brilliantly debated our psychological and political predicaments. No author has ever produced such astonishing female characters, perfected comic language so dazzlingly, or taught us as much about politics as William Shakespeare.

Boris Johnson explains Shakespeare's genius in a simple and readable way; in a way that gets to grips with what is really going on, what the characters are up to, what the point of it all is; and in a way that sets the man simply and intelligibly in the context of his time. He explores not only the origin of Shakespeare's genius, but also the nature of his genius. If Shakespeare is the greatest ever, then of what exactly does his greatness consist?

'What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare? That, as the man once said, is the question.'