The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare [9780061146497]

Overview

For more than 150 years, academics have questioned how William Shakespeare of Stratford—a man with limited schooling who apparently never traveled abroad—wrote such a rich body of work said to draw on the largest vocabulary of any writer in the English language. Motivated by scholarship, Shakespeare historian Brenda James set out to uncover the truth behind literature's greatest mystery.

The Truth Will Out is the culmination of James's search, a book five years in the making that details the intensive research, painstaking deciphering, and remarkable historical detection into the true identity of William Shakespeare. Coauthors James and respected history professor William D. Rubinstein explore these monumental findings and demonstrate how studying the dedication to Shakespeare's sonnets led them to the real author behind the English language's most enduring works. Offering eye-opening and definitive evidence, this groundbreaking work points to Sir Henry Neville, a prominent Elizabethan diplomat and member of Parliament, whose position in society forced him to allow an actor to take credit for his literary genius. Captivating, elucidating, and certain to provoke lively debate, The Truth Will Out is a revelatory exploration of two men and their time that will forever change the landscape of Shakespearean scholarship.