Known for his brilliant use of language, Tom Stoppard has woven art, science, philosophy, and literature into works like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Thing, Arcadia, and Shakespeare in Love. Yet this most English of playwrights, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, was a wartime Czech refugee, and discovered late in life he was Jewish. At Stoppard's request, Hermione Lee weaves his charmed life and virtuoso work into a continuous tapestry, including friends like Peter O'Toole, Harold Pinter, Stephen Spielberg, and Václav Havel.