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 actors 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_19506... ( )

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. ( )