Shakespeare is the most autobiographical of all the Elizabethan dramatists the only one of them to write his autobiography, during the crucial years of his life, in the Sonnets. Shakespeare reveals himself throughout his work as in his Sonnets and, strangely enough, no one before has thought of bringing this home to us, as in this revealing and original book in which Shakespeare speaks for himself. In this Self-Portrait Shakespeare stands clear before us in all his associations, family, professional, social, in the proper perspective of the life and events of his time.