The Truth Will Out Unmasking the Real Shakespeare

The question of who wrote Shakespeare?s plays has been the subject of furious debate among scholars for over 150 years. Everything known about the facts of William Shakespeare?s life seems incompatible with the extraordinary genius of his writing. How could a man who left school at the age of 13, and apparently never travelled abroad have authored the incomparable Sonnets or so intricately described Renaissance Venice? Shakespeare ?candidates? abound, among them Sir Francis Bacon, The Earl of Oxford, even Queen Elizabeth I herself, but none have stood up to serious scrutiny. Until now?.

This remarkable, intriguing, and provocative book offers a completely plausible new candidate; Sir Henry Neville.

1. The Shakespeare Authorship Question

2. The real Shakespeare

3. The Neville heritage

4. Becoming William Shakespeare, 1582-94

5. The road to the top, 1595-99

6. Ambassador to France, 1599-1600

7. The catastrophe, 1601-03

8. Freedom and disappointment, 1603-08

9. Towards closure: the last plays, the Sonnets and the parliamentary 'Undertaker', 1609-15

10. Life after death: the First Folio and the apotheosis of Shakespeare

11. Documentary evidence: analyses and Shakespearean parallels

Appendices

1. Commendatory verses and the three suns

2. Sir Henry Neville and the Essex rebellion

3. Sir Henry Neville's voyage to France, and its double

4. A review of Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America

5. Genealogical notes

6. The chronology of Shakespeare's works

Brenda James has pursued a life-long interest in Shakespeare and gained a First Class Honours degree in Cultural Studies from Portsmouth University.

Professor William Rubinstein is Professor of Modern History at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has published widely on many aspects of modern history.