Exclusive interview with author Pete Brown and his book about a Southwark pub that’s been around since Shakespeare’s time
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Much of the history of pubs and beer is not written down,” says Shakespeare’s Pub author Pete Brown. “They were the places of the working classes, and for most of our history these people could not read or write. I spent a year looking for mentions of the pub in old newspapers, public records offices, anywhere I could find them. Then it was just a case of choosing the right pub, and the George Inn quickly emerged ahead of other old pubs I could have written about.”
This book isn’t about Shakespeare, but about a pub he may have frequented. The focus of the book is a history of Southwark, on London’s South Bank. The George Inn is located near London Bridge and The Globe Theater where Shakespeare spent much of his time. Changing its name over the years, it has been around for about 600 years. The original building burned down and was rebuilt only to go up in flames in a second fire and be rebuilt again.
There are chapters in the book about the famous writers who came to the inn. The National Trust now owns it. A detailed time line of the George Inn is included. The details are fascinating with footnotes along the way covering gossip and news of the day. The pub benefited from its location on the road out of London where many great and aristocratic people traveled. It’s where the mail coaches changed horses on their way to the provinces.
Brown had to restart writing the book after the theft of his laptop, “I had almost finished the research, which happened in a pub of course,” says Brown. “I was four months away from my deadline and I had nothing backed up. My external hard drive had stopped working and I hadn’t quite figured out the Cloud by that point. I literally had to start again from scratch. In some ways it’s a better book because of it, but it’s not an experience I’d care to repeat.”
The idea for the book emerged gradually, over about five years. “There had been a couple of books here tracing the history of individual houses or streets through the ages, and I thought, there’s way more going on in pubs than houses, and many pubs have been around much longer than houses,” says Brown. “A similar book about a pub would be amazing to research and write.”
“I wanted to get to the greatest level of granular detail that I could,” says Brown. “This book owes its existence to public libraries. The British Library in North London allows you access to pretty much any book ever written, and allows you to work search online copies of newspapers up to 400 years old. Then the local library near the George Inn in Southwark, South London, had a folder of press cuttings about the pub that’s four inches thick, going back to the Victorian era. Our libraries are essential resources and they must be preserved.”
Brown writes a blog and articles. His books include Man Walks into a Pub (a general history of beer and pubs), Three Sheets to the Wind (a global tour in search of the meaning of beer), and Hops and Glory (his quest to recreate the voyage of India Pale Ale). His latest book, World’s Best Cider, is a global guide.
World’s Best Cider recently won Drinks Book of the Year at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards.
Brown was born in Barnsley, England.
Shakespeare’s Pub: A Barstool History of London as Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub, The George Inn by Pete Brown. Trade Paperback: 368 pages, Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin (June 3, 2014), Language: English, ISBN: 9781250049025 $16.99
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