Shakespeare's shrine : the Bard's birthplace and the invention of Stratford-upon-Avon
Shakespeare's Birthplace on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon was purchased by Shakespeare's father in two stages in 1556 and 1575, and William was born and brought up there. The author reveals just how fully the birthplace that we visit today is a creation of the nineteenth century. Two hundred years after Shakespeare's death, the run-down house on Henley Street was home to a butcher shop and a pub. Saved from the threat of a sale to P. T. Barnum, it was purchased for the English nation in 1847 and given the picturesque half-timbered façade first seen in a 1769 engraving of the building. A confluence of nationalism, nostalgia, and the easy access afforded by rail travel turned the house into a major tourist attraction
Print Book, English, ©2012
1st ed
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, ©2012