My column today is titled “Shakespeare with Van Doren.” A reader writes,

Hi, Jay,

I have to confess: When I saw your title, I thought, “Jay has really outdone himself. Mamie Van Doren reciting or enacting Shakespeare? That is intriguing.” But alas . . .

Another reader writes,

The only Van Doren I had heard of is Mamie. You have broadened my horizons. Today, by the way, Mamie is 93.

Wikipedia describes Ms. Van Doren as “an American actress, singer, model, and sex symbol who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s.” She was one of the “Three M’s,” along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. (Marilyn contributes two M’s, I guess.)

Mamie Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, S.D. Her mother named her after Joan Crawford, the movie star. In Hollywood, she was given that Dutch last name, “Van Doren,” and the first name of the First Lady, Mrs. Eisenhower.

She has been married five times. Her life, I gather, has not been easy.

My column today is about Mark Van Doren and his 1939 book Shakespeare. Van Doren is a legendary professor of English, who worked at Columbia University. His brother was Carl Van Doren, also a professor at Columbia, who in 1939 won the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Benjamin Franklin. The year 1939 was big for the Van Doren brothers.

In 1940, Mark won a Pulitzer for his collected........

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