Judith Cook: Dr Simon Forman: A most notorious physician

By MARGIE THOMSON

Elizabethan London seems ever-ripe for a biography of yet another colourful character who shared those dirty, narrow streets with William Shakespeare.

Simon Forman, in fact, recorded in his diary the first eyewitness accounts of Shakespeare's plays, and was doctor to the players at the Rose and Globe theatres.

Cook began her acquaintance with Forman accidentally, through the records of those who believed him to be a highly suspect character - quack, charlatan and insatiable womaniser, with connections to the underworld - but as she began to seriously focus on him a different picture began to emerge of this wayward genius.

He lived in exciting times - new sciences were burgeoning, new worlds were being discovered - and had an unquenchable interest in it all. He was increasingly caught up on the fringes of great events and chronicled it all in his extensive diary. As much as possible, Cook tells Forman's story in his own words, but with her own lucid commentary. A highly readable account of a turbulent character in dramatic times.

Vintage

$27.95