Something Else
More Shakespeare and the Law
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About the Book
Something Else is a sequel to Daniel J. Kornstein's classic 1994 study of Shakespeare and the law Kill All the Lawyers? The author found he had more — something else — to say on the subject. Written in the same crisp, lucid, and witty style as his previous critically acclaimed and highly influential book on Shakespeare, Kornstein's new book continues his illuminating, original, and entertaining explorations of the Bard and the law.
In Something Else Kornstein probes new Shakespeare territory with insight and eloquence, but without academic. He analyzes from a fresh perspective, and devastatingly picks apart, Mark Twain's "evidence" that Shakespeare could not have written the plays because he was not a lawyer. Kornstein submits for the reader's verdict moot court briefs based on Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice. A timely chapter on Coriolanus shows how that rarely performed play explains much about democracy and elections in America. The author's discussion of Henry V and the law of war will rivet everyone's attention with its relevance to recent history and current events.
Other chapters look at why Shakespeare never mentions Magna Carta in King John, comment on the many crooked judges in Shakespeare's plays, untangles The Comedy of Errors, tries to solve the mystery of Richard III and the princes in the Tower. In a whimsical final chapter, the author imagines a conversation
About the Author
Daniel J. Kornstein has been a lawyer in New York City for almost forty years. A graduate of Yale Law School, Kornstein couples a busy law practice with writing about the law. He is the author of six other non-fiction books, among them Partial Verdicts and Unlikely Muse: Legal Thinking and Artistic Imagination. In addition to professional journals, Kornstein's work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Baltimore Sun. His writings have been cited by a number of courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Kornstein is a past president of the Law and Humanities Institute.