''Becoming Shakespeare'' begins where most Shakespeare stories end, with his death in 1616. Jack Lynch has written the definitive biography of Shakespeare's afterlife: the fascinating tale of his unlikely transformation from provincial playwright to universal Bard. Unlike later literary giants, Shakespeare created no stir when he died. Within a few years he was nearly forgotten. And when London's theatres were shut down in 1642, he seemed destined for oblivion.With the Restoration in 1660, however, the theatres were open once again, and Shakespeare began his long ascent. No longer merely one playwright among many, he became the transcendent genius at the heart of English culture.Fifty years after the Restoration scholars began taking him seriously. Fifty years after that he was considered England's greatest genius. And by 1800 he was practically divine, what Jane Austen called 'part of an Englishman's constitution'.Jack Lynch brilliantly chronicles Shakespeare's afterlife - from the revival of his plays to the decades when his work was co-opted and 'improved' by politicians and other playwrights, and culminating with the 'Bardolatry' of the Stratford celebration of Shakespeare's three-hundredth birthday in 1864.''Becoming Shakespeare'' is not only essential reading for anyone intrigued by the myth of Shakespeare, but it also offers a consideration of the vagaries of fame.