Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? This authoritative collection of essays brings fresh perspectives to bear on an intriguing cultural phenomenon.

The Book the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Doesn't Want You to Read: Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Never has the case against the Stratford man been made so clear and compelling. Unsettled by the growing success of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition and its online Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon has published a book insisting that the identity of the author William Shakespeare is "beyond doubt." In this withering reply a dozen scholars expose the bankruptcy of this claim and challenge the Birthplace Trust to stand and defend its position under cross-examination in a televised mock trial. "Authorities tell us there is no doubt that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Should we trust them? This book comes at a critical time, with defenders of orthodoxy deceiving the public about how weak their case really is. It is time for a serious re-examination of the evidence. This book does just that." - Richard Waugaman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry; Faculty Expert on Shakespeare for Media Contacts, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C.

The Book the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Doesn't Want You to Read: Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Never has the case against the Stratford man been made so clear and compelling. Unsettled by the growing success of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition and its online Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon has published a book insisting that the identity of the author William Shakespeare is "beyond doubt." In this withering reply a dozen scholars expose the bankruptcy of this claim and challenge the Birthplace Trust to stand and defend its position under cross-examination in a televised mock trial. "Authorities tell us there is no doubt that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Should we trust them? This book comes at a critical time, with defenders of orthodoxy deceiving the public about how weak their case really is. It is time for a serious re-examination of the evidence. This book does just that." - Richard Waugaman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry; Faculty Expert on Shakespeare for Media Contacts, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

It successfully argues that "William Shakespeare" was the pen name of an aristocrat, and that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was a shrewd entrepreneur, not a dramatist."--BOOK JACKET.

The debate over the true author of the Shakespeare canon has raged for centuries. Astonishingly little evidence supports the traditional belief that Will Shakespeare, the actor and businessman from Stratford-upon-Avon, was the author. Legendary figures such as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud have all expressed grave doubts that an uneducated man who apparently owned no books and never left England wrote plays and poems that consistently reflect a learned and well-traveled insider's perspective on royal courts and the ancient feudal nobility. Recent scholarship has turned to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford-an Elizabethan court playwright known to have written in secret and who had ample means, motive and opportunity to in fact have assumed the "Shakespeare" disguise. "Shakespeare" by Another Name is the literary biography of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." This groundbreaking book tells the story of de Vere's action-packed life-as Renaissance man, spendthrift, courtier, wit, student, scoundrel, patron, military adventurer, and, above all, prolific ghostwriter-finding in it the background material for all of The Bard's works. Biographer Mark Anderson incorporates a wealth of new evidence, including de Vere's personal copy of the Bible (in which de Vere underlines scores of passages that are also prominent Shakespearean biblical references).

Demonstrates that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon really did write the plays and poems attributed to him via a literary forensics case that puts all other authorship theories to rest.