Thomas Dabbs speaks with Lena Cowen Orlin about her new book, ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ and about about other areas of her research, including her findings on Tudor homes and her detailed recovery of quotidian life during Shakespeare’s time.  00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:24 - ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’: Overview 00:09:20 - Shakespeare’s education in Stratford: Ovid and Cicero 00:12:40 - Shakespeare’s returns to Stratford from London: Oxford, monuments 00:15:02 - Shakespeare’s monument 00:17:58 - Problems in the history of Shakespearean biography 00:20:00 - Biographical research, evidence clusters: misrepresentations and obsessions 00:27:48 - Misrepresentations of Shakespeare’s marriage: 2nd best bed 00:33:08 - Shakespeare’s will, early modern wills 00:35:04 - Lena’s research on private life and Tudor houses 00:38:49 - Hagler Institute: the Shakespeare Variorum 00:45:45 - The Folger and Lena’s work at the Folger, training at Chapel Hill, Hinman collator 00:50:21 - Benefits of digital resources 00:52:47 - Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Stratford and fires 00:58:55 - Lena and the Shakespeare Assoc. of America, and the International Shakespeare Assoc. 01:03:01 - Lena’s background: Washington, D.C., and London, research on houses 01:06:55 - More on Lena’s future work, private papers in Shakespeare 01:08:55 - Research travel during a pandemic: in-person conferencing and field research 01:15:08 - Closing remarks The Speaking of Shakespeare series is funded with institutional support from Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) and with a generous grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).