Deeply researched but happily readable. New York Review of Books absorbing biography New Statesman fascinating portrait...brilliant biography Daily Telegraph authoritative and lucid biography Sunday Telegraph definitive biography of this quarrelsome playwright. Sunday Times The biographical material on Jonson is extraordinarily rich...Donaldson's fine book is stocked with new material The Guardian exemplary new biography...rich in detail and insights The Guardian a work of clarity and lucidity, exact in its historical detail, full of new material and ingeniously suggestive in its conjecture and interpretation. Sam Leith, Spectator Donaldson is ideally placed to write the definitive life, and he has done so.' John Carey, Sunday Times

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS; NOTE ON TEXTS AND DATING; 1. Prologue: The Biographer's Bones; 2. Scotland 1618-1619; 3. Debatable Land 1542-1572; 4. Influences 1572-1588; 5. Conflicts 1588-1592; 6. Entering the Theatre 1594-1597; 7. Saved by the Book 1597-1598; 8. Global Satire 1598-1601; 9. The Wolf's Black Jaw 1601-1603; 10. Scots, Plots, and Panegyrics 1603-1605; 11. Following the Plot 1606-7; 12. Communities 1607-1612; 13. City, Theatre, Court 1610-1612; 14. Travels 1611-1613; 15. Fame 1613-1616; 16. Money 1614-1617; 17. Scholarship 1619-1630; 18. Lateness 1619-1637; 19. Remembrance with Posterity; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS