This is the definitive book to read in the 21st century if you want to understand the importance of having the right author in place in order to understand what the author "Shake-speare" is actually writing about.

Definitely intriguing. I suppose we'll never know the true identity of the Shakespeare works. Though Beauclerk puts a good case forward: someone with deeper access to the world of the Elizabethan court would be the more likely writer, I was a bit put off by the immediate assertion that the Earl of Oxford, Edward De Vere, was the true writer. I mean, he had no doubt, and in history there is always room for doubt. Then there's all the incest: De Vere's actually the son of Queen Elizabeth by Thomas Seymour, and in turn they had a son together. His way of proving this was by using the Shakespeare plays and sonnets to find hidden codes and metaphors, which by all means could have been possible, but it was sometimes a bit of a stretch. Poets the English-speaking world over have used 'ever' as a word that means 'ever', not necessarily E. Ver (Edward De Vere? Get it?)

Do I think William of Stratford was the true Shakespeare, or was it Oxford? I'm still not thoroughly convinced either way.

If anything, it was a fun study of Shakespeare's writings, especially of Hamlet. ( )

Reads like a Mexican Soap Opera, or a Greek one maybe,, but more insane and weird. Reading it in this spirit, I found it entertaining-ish. The ideas (some of which are interesting) were lost to me with the author's strange obsession with incest. Anne Boleyn was Henry's daughter/wife. Is the first of many many many. Apparently everyone was doing it back then.