"Shakespeare" by Another Name

Margo Anderson

• Publisher: Histria Perspectives
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781611871784
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

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).

Table of contents

• Cover
• “Shakespeare” by Another Name The Biography of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare
• CONTENTS
• THE ARGUMENT
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER :1 THE EYE OF CHILDHOOD [1550–1562]
• CHAPTER 2: EVERMORE IN SUBJECTION [1562–1569]
• CHAPTER 3: TREASONS AND VILE INSTRUMENTS [1569–1572]
• CHAPTER 4: FOR MAKING A MAN [1573–1575]
• CHAPTER 5: THE FABLE OF THE WORLD [1575–1578]
• CHAPTER 6: IN BRAWL RIDICULOUS [1577–1582]
• CHAPTER 7: FORTUNE’S DEAREST SPITE [1582–1585]
• CHAPTER 8: TO THY RUDDER TIED BY TH’ STRINGS [1586–1589]
• CHAPTER 9: GENTLE MASTER WILLIAM [1589–1593]
• CHAPTER 10: THE SHARP RAZOR OF A WILLING CONCEIT [1593–1598]
• CHAPTER 11: BURIED BE [1598–1604]
• EPILOGUE [1604–1623]
• APPENDIX A: EDWARD DE VERE’S GENEVA BIBLE AND SHAKE-SPEARE
• APPENDIX B: THE SHAKE-SPEARE APOCRYPHA
• APPENDIX C: “the 1604 question”
• APPENDIX D: THE “ASHBOURNE PORTRAIT OF SHAKE-SPEARE”
• APPENDIX E: “SHAKESPEARE” BY ANOTHER NAME’S DRAMATIS PERSONAE
• APPENDIX F: THE “COBBE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE”
• APPENDIX G: ANONYMOUS & THE “PRINCE TUDOR” THEORY
• APPENDIX H: THE SHAKESPEARE GUIDE TO ITALY
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• USAGE NOTE
• PHOTO CREDITS
• FREQUENTLY CITED SOURCES
• NOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS