Stanford Humanities Center
David Riggs has been a member of the Stanford English Department since 1969. He specializes in Renaissance literature, with an emphasis on the lives of early modern playwrights. His first book, Shakespeare's Heroical Histories: Henry VI and Its Literary Tradition (1971), traces the influence of Shakespeare's grammar school education and apprentice work in the theater on his earliest plays. Subsequent publications include biographies of Ben Jonson (1989) and Christopher Marlowe (2004).
SHC Project
"From Hamnet to Hamlet: The World of William Shakespeare, 1596-1601"
He is currently working on a biography of Shakespeare in his thirties. He was previously a Fellow at the SHC in 1982-83 and 1998-99. From Hamnet to Hamlet: the World of William Shakespeare, 1596-1601 is a biography of Shakespeare during his mid-thirties. Riggs' narrative begins in the summer of 1596, which saw the death of Shakespeare’s only son Hamnet (or Hamlet); it concludes with the making of Hamlet three or four years later.
