"Tiger's Heart: Shakespeare's Lost Years" by Leslie Rocker is published
A fictional account of some of the influential characters in Shakespeare's eventful life.
- (1888PressRelease) December 16, 2016 - ISBN #978-1785074752
"Tiger's Heart: Shakespeare's Lost Years" by Leslie Rocker
About the Book:
SHOCK! HORROR! Shakespeare really did write the works ascribed to him. It was not the Earl of Oxford or Christopher Marlowe. But how could a relatively poor, ignorant provincial lad have written such masterpieces? How did he acquire the knowledge implicit in his plays - the details of historical events, tales of foreign countries? How did he spend his time in the so-called "lost years"? This book attempts to provide in fictional form answers to these questions and introduces the reader to some of the extraordinary characters the budding playwright would have encountered, particularly Thomas James, who in later years developed a reputation as the "cleverest man in England" after his appointment as the first librarian to the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
About the Author:
Leslie has been a writer of one kind or another all his life, writing his first novel, "The Limestone Murder Mystery", at the age of nine. He served his national service in the Merchant Navy, which, despite the very arduous life involved, gave him opportunities to write poetry and short stories and to study with the Seafarers Education Service, or College of the Sea. This amounted, in effect, to a form of university.
Once ashore, he became a journalist and worked on editorial departments of trade and professional journals in London. He has continued to write poetry throughout his life and has published a book of collected poems. He became increasingly interested in the theatre, however, acted and directed as an amateur and wrote plays, one of which, "The Death of Christopher Marlowe", was produced at a club theatre in Notting Hill Gate.
He then decided to work in the theatre professionally, as a stage manager and director, actor and singer, playing in rep. and on tour and eventually being involved in productions on London's West End. He still found time to write, however, and had articles published in The Times and the, then, Manchester Guardian.
Deciding there were easier ways to starve, Leslie returned to full-time journalism as editor of trade magazines. This led him to become involved in the work of trade and professional associations and societies, national and internationally.
Following a successful heart bypass operation when he was 80, Leslie decided he should justify his new lease of life and began writing novels, several of which he has published on Kindle.
Excerpt from the book's Prologue:
"The secret to Shakespeare's genius is quite simply that he was a wordsmith, perhaps the greatest of all, fortunate to be living when the English language was at its most formative and creative. It was a period too when the aristocracy and the literati communicated through the medium of poetry. And although the majority of the populace could not read, a medium had been devised called the Theatre (from the Greek "place"), in which the treasures of the vernacular could be conveyed to them, where all levels of society could gather not just to watch bears being bated, or to see a sword fight, but to hear wonderful words proclaimed by actors with stentorian voices and grandiose gestures.
This book tries to imagine the historical conditions in which Shakespeare would have worked, the people he might have encountered. He became involved in their lives, but he found himself standing outside them, observing their stories. In this book one of them has a happy ending; another ends in death. Shakespeare would have learned from both."
"Tiger's Heart - Shakespeare's Lost Years" by Leslie Rocker is available in hardback from Amazon.co.uk at:
www.amazon.co.uk/Tigers-Heart-Shakespeares-Lost-Years/dp/1785074768
This book is also available in paperback format from Amazon.co.uk:
www.amazon.co.uk/Tigers-Heart-Shakespeares-Lost-Years/dp/178507475X
Press/Media Contact Details:
New Generation Publishing
Tel. 01234 712 064
E-mail: info ( @ ) newgeneration-publishing dot com
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