The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare

by William Rubinstein and Brenda James

Book 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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006114648X
• ISBN13: 9780061146480
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 372 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding Book!

This is an outstanding book that deserves the widest possible audience. My hat goes off to its authors, especially Brenda James. I think this book makes a convincing case, particularly when you consider that until the First Folio was published no one could see all of the plays and the sonnets at the same time and understand just how remarkable a body of work they were. To quote from the book (page 206): "..... Neville had no real reason to suppose that his plays would be performed or even remembered ten years after his death. Dozens of new plays were premiered every year in London, and talented new authors were appearing constantly." I also liked this quote in the Afterword on pgs 254-55, which is applicable to many issues beyond the question of who wrote the 'Shakespeare' plays and sonnets: "...it is therefore now explicable why the main previous authorship candidates all arose before the Second World War and before the mass media was underway. In those days, society had fewer national 'norms' to which to conform, and less need to appear totally cohesive. Controversy was a healthy sign of a secure, diverse community and balanced humanity." Or to put it another way, 'political correctness' had not yet stifled public discourse the way it does today, at least as far as academia and Big media are concerned. It's no wonder this book has been ignored by the 'Establishment' today.

It's Sir Henry Neville

Brenda James, in her immpeccably researched and written book, seems at last to have solved one of the last great mysteries in literature. William Shakespeare simply could not have written the plays and poetry, but Neville could. I won't rehearse the argument here--that's the whole fun of reading her book! Suffice it to say, the truth is now out: It's Sir Henry Neville who is the world's greatest bard. James deserves unbounded credit for her doggedness and courage: for as we all know, the least open-minded people are all too often in Academia itself. But inspite of their opposition and opprobrium, James persevered in her beliefs...and we all owe her a debt thanks for bringing to light the truth about Shakespeare. May history give her the accolades she so richly deserves.

Must read!

[Update, August 15, 2009: after reading Gillingham's "The War of the Roses," the question is settled for me. Brenda James is correct.] The question is no longer whether the Shakespeare from Stratford wrote the works ascribed to him, but rather: who was the "real" Shakespearian writer? I won't get into that debate; Ms James' argument does that well enough. But her writing is so delightful, you won't put the book down once you have started. Here is just one short selection: "Shakespeare had the largest vocabulary of any writer who ever lived. His works employ nearly 18,000 different and separate words, about twice as many as Milton used (although Milton was one of the most accomplished graduates of his time at Cambridge University) and perhaps five times as many as the average educated person today. Shakespeare also coined more new words than any other writer in the history of the English language, about 1,500 in all, among them not merely archaisms but dozens of common words in everyday use today, such as `addiction', `assassination', `birthplace', `circumstantial', `cold-blooded', `courtship', `dawn', `denote', `dialogue', `discontent', `divest', `downstairs' and `dwindle', to cite only those words he coined which begin with the letters A to D, to say nothing of `alligator', amazement' and `bandit'. Further along the alphabet there is, if one prefers, `embrace', `employer', `eventful', all the way down to `well behaved', `widen', `worthless' and `zany', while along the way there is everything from `eyeball' to `outbreak', `hurry', `luggage' and `retirement'. It may well be that no educated English-speaking person goes more than (at most) a few hours without using one or more words coined by Shakespeare, almost certainly without knowing it. It is quite possible that no book, newspaper or magazine published in English in the past century or more fails to contain at least one word coined by Shakespeare, and probably a great many. Then there are the innumerable common phrases coined by Shakespeare, which most people would assume to be proverbial, but which first occurred in Shakespeare's works: `into thin air', `time-honoured', `be-all and end-all', `pith and marrow', `shooting star', `the dogs of war' and literally dozens of others." As a reminder: Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Sir Henry Neville, b. 1564; d. 1615. The only other possible contendor for the Shakespeare title is Edward De Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550 - 1604. The last Shakespearian play, wholly written by "Shakespeare," The Tempest, was written in 1611. De Vere must have written that one from the grave.

By George, I think she's got it!

For many years, I have been interested in the "authorship question." I have become quite convinced that the body of Shakespeare works could not very likely have been written by the Stratford bloke. As Dr. Peter Sammartino wrote (in 1972), that would have required "a miracle." Yet I was uneasy with the Oxfordian hypothesis, because all the identifiable works by Oxford just didn't seem to me to read like Shakespeare. Also, Oxford's dates are not right. The book at hand may turn out to be a real landmark in the history of literature. It provides a Shakespeare candidate with the necessary education, with the necessary travel experience (completely lacking for Stratford's Shakespeare), the connections (familial and political), the personal chronology, and even a number of strongly indicative documents. Now what will the established experts say? The ones with whom I have spoken have been disdainful, but admit that they have not bothered to follow the authorship question, assuming that it was all settled. I urge anyone interested to stand back and look at the evidence anew: forget the endless repetitions of the accepted story, and look at the facts as if you were coming upon them for the first time. This is one of those situations where it is crucial to make a clean start. Make a list, perhaps a table of the evidence. By all mean, be skeptical: but be skeptical evenly. I think that the authorship question is a good example of the inertia which takes hold in the humanities. My own experience as a scientist leads me to think that we in the sciences are much more willing to change ideas in the face of new evidence. After all, plate tectonics was largely accepted within five years, or at most a decade. Geologists were not afraid to abandon the thinking of a professional lifetime, when new facts and interpretations came to the fore. It was an exhilarating time. Will the literary specialists be adaptable, or will they be too stodgy to change? Here we will be able to witness a good test of the academic culture. For a layman like me, this book is a great find. It is exciting to find a treasure like this, and nobody can take away the sheer pleasure of sharing in discovery.

A must have book for anyone interested in Shakespeare

If you are the type that likes to try and judge the importance of coincidences, this is a book for you. There are several hundred coincidences that suggest that Sir Henry Neville wrote the works of Shakespeare. The probability is several orders of magnitude greater than for any of the other contenders, including Will Shakespeare from Stratford. The list goes on an on - and what is fun, from my point of view - is that any member of the public can do their own research - easily, using the net. For instance, go to [...]. Find Sir Henry Neville, born about 1564. Click on his father, and on his father - and so on about 18 times till you get to Maldred, Lord of Allerdale. The entry for him says "He died in 1045, killed in action, while attempting to avenge the murder of his brother by Macbeth" Good fun! A lot more to be had. An old Penguin book of mine, of Seneca's plays says that the first translation of Oedipus into English was by an A. Neville in 1563. Look him up. He went to Merton College in Oxford, as did Sir Henry Neville 13 years after the translation. Who was Henry Neville's tutor at Oxford? Saville - who was put in charge of translating the King James Bible. No one knows who edited this famous version of the bible. Google King James Psalm 46. Count down 46 words - you find the word shake. Now count up 46 words from the bottom - you get spear! This does not occur in any other translation - I have checked 19. The other night I was cycling through the City of London at about 3 am and got lost. I found I was in Lothbury street (where Neville stayed for about 6 months of the year - he was an MP all his life) That turns into Gresham Street - where Ben Jonson lived for a year while he put together and edited the First Folio - the first complete collection of Shakespeare's works. Look up the next generation of the people who also lived in the Lothbury house - (Killigrews) - half of them turned into playwrights! One went into partnership with Will Shakespeare's illegitimate son. Lothbury Street is only a couple of hundred yards from London Bridge - on the other side of which was the Globe. Of course London was full of little theatres at that time. None of the coincidences mean anything on their own, but there are several hundred. He was in the Tower with Southampton. Cousin to Cecil and Bacon. He had the languages, the travel experience, the contacts, the education, the knowledge of nature, maths, science, metal working - and so on and so on. James I went to him for writing lessons. His life fits. His life circumstances fit unbelievably well. He had very powerful reasons not to be known as the real author. He was connected to William Shakespeare. He lived in the right places at the right times. He was an ambassador to France. His grandfather was executed for treason by Henry VIII. His mother's family had very important mercantile connections. His wife's family were very interesting - legalised pirates in Cornwall, full