I've always been interested in the Shakespeare "authorship question." First off, I think the actor from Avon was the author of the plays, but I like conspiracy theories and watching otherwise sane people bend the silliest tidbits of evidence to fit their hypotheses. This is a breeze of a book to read, and is written for a general audience. Fields gives the background of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras and tries, as best as he can, to give both sides of the issue. The problem is, however, that it is apparent he doesn't think the Stratford actor was the playwright, and sometimes he is inconsistent with his logic. Thus, the Stratford actor couldn't have asked British travellers for information about Italy, but someone like Bacon could have asked a soldier about military information. Et cetera. There are several such examples where there are perfectly plausible explanations in favor of the Stratford man that are dismissed, but similar arguments, in fact silly ones, are made in favor of the other candidates. The problem with these "Shakespeare must have been a nobleman" types is that there is much in the plays that is coarse and low, there are scores of references to agriculture, which the Stratford man was probably intimately familiar with, and any allusions to "noble" pursuits could have been learned by a writer, and was intended to be understood by a mass audience. For instance, Fields makes much of the references to falconry. According to Fields, this means the plays were not written by the lowly Stratford man, but a nobleman. He discounts the theory that the actor could have learned these facts. But wouldn't it be silly for a playwright to make references to falconry metaphors the groundlings would not have understood? I mean, I've never owned a yacht, but I understand sailing metaphors. Right?

I ramble.

Still, all in all, a neat book if it can be found cheaply, and a superb introduction to the subject. I wish I could give this book four stars, but I can not. Why? First, the editorial decision to make everything brown. The text, the images, everything. But more egregious is that though it is obviously well researched, there are no footnotes, endnotes, or bibliography, which makes this book nearly useless as a reference work. ( )

Who was Shakespeare really? The debate about whether the man from Stratford truly wrote the works attributed to the Bard has raged for centuries. In this work Fields seeks to objectively present the evidence for and against each of the candidates.

The author is a lawyer, and the legal style was quite blatant to me after my first semester of legal education. This was structured very like the memos I'm supposed to be writing. Fields does a good job of presenting the evidence objectively and fairly representing the many theories surrounding the author. Being Stratfordian (both because I don't go in for the conspiracy theories surrounding most of the other candidates and because I don't want to lose the romantic idea of 'Shakespeare in Love') I had never paid much attention to the cases for many of the other candidates. I learned a lot without having to slog through various dogmatic books. He did say some rather unpleasant things about Kit Marlowe (who is severely underrated), but it didn't rise to the obnoxious level of Greenblatt, so I was ok.

Actually, the most engaging part of the book is the description of the historical context in the beginning. The least interesting (and most unnecessarily complicated) is his theory presented at the end. I felt like Fields dwelled on the variants in spelling of the Stratford actor's name and that of the playwright FAR too much given the fluidity of spelling during the time in question. Harping about whether or not the actor pronounced himself with a long or a short 'a' as some sort of evidence that they were different people grew tiresome very quickly. And I certainly don't see why he quoted FREUD of all people in support of Oxford as Shakespeare. (Seriously, Freud? The man was clearly delusional.) But it was a good read, though best broken down over a few days. It can grow tedious if taken in too large doses. ( )

Everyone should read this to see what the stratfordians and the anti-strats have been arguing about all these years, then decide for yourself who and what to believe.

Read the Full Review here: http://www.epinions.com/content_195061780100 ( )

This book lays out the arguments for various authorships very objectively. Author’s analysis of some of the plays is way off base, but this is not a book you would read when doing research on Shakespeare’s work. It fact, you will it no help at all in the area.. It is presented in very straight forward lawyer like manner separating the 'facts' taken for granted from the real actual know facts about Shakespeare's life. This is what makes it so valuable for research on the authorship question. ( )