Shakespeare by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man Who Was Shakespeare

I LOVED IT and RECOMMEND ! -- D.D.--FL,USA.

I can understand posters who've never read this book calling it everything short of the Original Conspiracy Theory, but for those who have read it to call it "75% absurd supposition" and rubbish" leaves me (nearly) speechless. As Anderson says, "Fortunately, serious academic debate is triumphing, while orthodoxy contines its retreat behind a facade of mind-numbing vilification." (Forward.) The author admits that "there is no single 'smoking gun' document that leads one to inexorably to the conclusion that de Vere wrote [Shakes-peare]. Instead, one buids the case upon a series of facts and observations that, when put together like pieces of puzzle, produce and overall picture that becomes difficult to deny." (Page 381.) There is no evidence "Shakspere" of Stratford ever went to school. Granted, he probably did, it would be hard to become an actor is one can't read the plays. But even the most ardent Staffordian has to wonder why the most popular playwright of his day failed to educate his daughters, (they, like his wife and parents, were illiterate.) And why did "Shakspere" not mention any literary works in his will? There is not one scrap of credible evidence to support the deeply ingrained mis-belief that the man from Stratford wrote anything more than his signature. There is, however, overwhelming evidence that de Vere did. That plays were PUBLISHED after de Vere's death in 1604, doesn't mean they were WRITTEN after 1604. Various incarnations of plays were around for years before publication. Anderson clears up this common misconception quite succinctly. And to call the reasearch on this book "paper thin" is incredible! This is the most exhaustively researched book I've seen in years. 10 years worth! The end notes run over 100 pages! Kudos to Mark Anderson. If you are at all interested in Shakes-peare, I highly recommend this volumn.

Almost exactly four centuries after the true Bard's death, there is finally a biography of Shakespeare that truly deserves to be so called. Though Anderson draws greatly upon the work of Looney, Turner-Clark, Ogburn, and other Oxfordian pioneers, he is the first to achieve a comprehensive and truly credible biographical portait. Wonderfully written, loaded with all the right information, it now deserves to the be starting place for all who mean to study Shakespeare. Farewell Mr. Shakspere!

One need only read the posts to gauge the passions this issue raises. Whether or not the most caustic posters have read the book is questionable. Anderson approaches the subject by thoroughtly researching and writing about Edward de Vere's life and letting the discernable facts of his life and background speak as they relate to the Shakespeare oeuvre. While there may be some speculation to his book, the facts and the background reveal much about court life under Queen Elizabeth and about de Vere and sixteenth century England. At the end of the book, Anderson reveals the facts and conjecture surrounding the Shakespeare portrait in the Folger Library in Washington which is truly revealing. I urge all to read this fascinating book.

I am detecting a disturbing early trend in reviews of this work: those who recommend the book speak in some detail about its contents; those who do not, well, I see no evidence that they have even read the book they claim to be reviewing. This is not a forum for airing out one's disagreements with the so called Oxfordians. That said, I'll not waste time repeating what you can find in the other positive reviews. Anderson's writing is strong, current, his mind sharp. I count only one editorial error (p. 151), and only one tedious analogy, in the entire work. This alone should merit five stars. He has found order in vast amounts of disparate information, and his arguments in de Vere's favor will be hard to overcome, given extensive documentation in the notes (there are over 150 pages of them!) and the absolutely uncanny light cast by the biography on so many lines of the shakespeare corpus that have befuddled scholars for centuries. Some will say that such books as Anderson's won't change anybody's mind. Well, Anderson has changed mine. He has not simply reinvigorated my interest in Shakespeare; he has, by impressing these plays with so much of de Vere's sorrows and anxieties, so much folly, helped me finally to see and love the humanity in them. For a powerful example of this, see the discussion of Macbeth on pp. 212-18. Highly recommended.

Mark Anderson's painstaking matching of de Vere's life with the content of "Shake-speare's" writings is necessary to reveal the bard's true identity. A dozen or more matches are interesting; but page after page after page of matches, for month after month, year after year, of de Vere's life, even in the circumstances of his daughter's life after his death when more plays were published, absolutely blows away any conception of the real bard being anyone other than Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. There are just too many "coincidences" to dismiss. A lowly actor from Stratford may have access to a few of these coincidences, of maybe a handful or more that were public knowledge. But to have every detail fit perfectly for the case for de Vere as the bard, is more than coincidence. It is truth. A reader cannot imagine, for example, how a lowly actor from Stratford, could possibly have the knowledge of books only found in private libraries at the time. When de Vere's extensive education by the very best minds in England, available only to the elite nobility, is detailed in this book, a reader cannot imagine a commoner having such a vast array of studies to draw on. Anderson lists the favorite and the many sources of the bard's references in his plays, as being the very sources that de Vere had access to. De Vere's reputation as a prodigy by his contemporaries is clearly presented by Anderson. Anderson writes of one contemporary saying that de Vere inhaled learning as others breath the air (to paraphrase). De Vere's wit and passion are well-documented in the book. Anderson also very clearly makes the case that there was always potential danger for anyone of the nobility of that age from the always changing political tides. Anderson also shows how the master manipulator and Elizabeth's arm of power, Cecil Burghley, who was also de Vere's father-in-law, spied on him through both de Vere's wife and his servants, throughout de Vere's life. De Vere as the author "Shakes-speare" knew from an early age what happened to those who got on the wrong side of Elizabeth and Burghley. The book is convincing in showing how de Vere's plays and sonnets spoke volumes about contemporaries and contempory events yet not directly illegally slandering them or causing a duel because he spoke through the acting or in sonnets. The book reveals how this was a very much used method of communicating opinions during de Vere's life by other authors as well. I highly recommend this book as either an introduction to de Vere as the true Shakespeare or as an addition to other information on de Vere.