Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John Michell (Thames and Hudson, £8.95 in UK)

Well, who did? The real-life Shakespeare sounds a shady character, who soon made Stratford too hot for himself and later surfaced…

Well, who did? The real-life Shakespeare sounds a shady character, who soon made Stratford too hot for himself and later surfaced among the underworld of the London theatre, a consort of pimps and criminals; it is not certain even if he was fully literate. Back in Stratford, he became a moneylender and wrote or published nothing. There is some proof that John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, may have written the Sonnets; Francis Bacon is claimed as the author of Venus and Adonis; the Earl of Rutland is a strong candidate for Hamlet (he knew Denmark and Elsinore well). John Mitchell's own theoretical solution is ingenious and well argued, but it would spoil the fun for potential readers to divulge it here.

Brian Fallon