Contested Will
Who Wrote Shakespeare?

This well-written exploration of the most popular of all literary conspiracy theories--namely, denying that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare--may contain (at least for my taste) too many details about the most prominent Baconians and Oxfordians, but such details are germane to Shapiro's subject, since......more

I am a Shakespeare fanatic so I was predisposed to liking this book (especially as Shapiro is very much of the opinion that Shakespeare DID write all the plays attributed to him), but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned. I've taken graduate level courses on Shakespeare and Textual Criti......more

the fact that we need books like this is a sad reflection on the delusional stupidity of way to many people - the idea that there is any mystery as to who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare is nonsense - if you doubt that Shakespeare wrote these plays then you probably think aliens built the......more

I had expected a strong overlap between Shapiro's book and the parallel sections of Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives, the 400 year history of attempts to create a Life of Shakespeare. But there is no replication. Shapiro is no less scholarly, but he goes further in striving to understand the creator......more

I would never have read this if someone hadn't recommended it as thoroughly anti all those ludicrous, classist, and ultimately antisemitic (as they all inevitably are) conspiracy theories that Shakespeare, a glover's son and moneylender (see?), couldn't have produced one if not the greatest bodies o......more