For two centuries after Shakespeares death no one thought to argue that someone else had written his plays. Since then dozens of candidates including Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford have been proposed. Combining scrupulous research with a close reading of Shakespeares works this absorbing book retraces a tortuous path strewn with fabricated documents to unravel the mystery of why so many people - including such eminent figures as Henry James and Sigmund Freud - have questioned his authorship.
