James Shapiro

James Shapiro is a Shakespeare scholar and professor emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where his research joins literary study to theater and early modern history. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 reconstructs a decisive year through plays, political events, sermons, letters, official records, and the working conditions of the London stage. Shapiro connects the period to Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet, treating Shakespeare as an actor, shareholder, businessman, and playwright responding to immediate pressures. Published in British and American editions with reversed title order, the study won the Samuel Johnson Prize and later the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners award. Shapiro's broader scholarship includes Shakespeare and the Jews, Contested Will, and 1606: The Year of Lear. His university biography also records editorial work for the Library of America and documentary collaboration with the BBC, placing the book within a career devoted to historically grounded Shakespeare interpretation.