In Harold Bloom's New York Times bestselling Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, the world's foremost literary critic theorized on the authorship of the historic play Hamlet. In this engaging new stand-alone work, he offers a full and warmly personal account of the play itself, explores its extraordinary impact throughout the history of western literature, and seeks to uncover the mystery at its heart. "An intellectual fireworks display." —San Jose Mercury News

"Not perhaps since Samuel Johnson has a critic explained to a general audience as ably as Mr. Bloom does how much Shakespeare matters to our sense of who we are." —New York Times