Anti-apartheid activist, Bollywood screenwriter, Nazi pin-up, hero of the Wild West: this is Shakespeare as you have never seen him before. From the sixteenth-century Baltic to the American Revolution, from colonial India to the skyscrapers of modern-day Shanghai, Shakespeare`s plays appear at the most fascinating of times & in the most unexpected of places. No other writer`s work has been performed, translated, adapted & altered in such a remarkable variety of cultures & languages. But what is it about William Shakespeare
- a man from Warwickshire who never once set foot outside England
- that has made him at home in so many places around the globe? Travelling across four continents, six countries & 400 years, Andrew Dickson takes us on a personal journey rich in insight & surprise. We enter the air-conditioned vault deep beneath Capitol Hill where the world`s largest collection of First Folios is stored; discover the shadowy history of Joseph Goebbels` obsession with Shakespeare; & uncover the true story behind the scuffed edition in which Nelson Mandela & fellow Robben Island prisoners inscribed their names. Both cultural history & literary travelogue, Worlds Elsewhere is an attempt to understand how Shakespeare has become the international phenomenon he is
- & why.