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Shakespeare Oxford Society Bookstore Shakespeare Authorship Books | Other Shakespeare Books

Our members should please note that member discounts obviously do not apply for books purchased through Amazon.com. However, their prices for a number of titles are actually better than what we were able to offer members, even with the discount. Also note that the Blue Boar Shop remains available on a separate page, and includes several book titles and videos not available through Amazon.com, but which can still be purchased through us.

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Recommended Reading - Shakespeare Authorship Books:

"Provocatively separating William Shakespeare of Stratford from William Shakespeare the playwright, Sobran demonstrates that neither one could have been the other." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Blue Avenger Cracks the Code. By Norma Howe. 296 pages. This young adult novel is an excellent way to introduce school-agers to the authorship issue. US News and World Report called it, "an excellent Oxfordian primer," and Publisher's Weekly praised it as "eccentric and intellectually engaging." The hero in this book is a schoolboy named David, whose teacher brings up the authorship question, seeking one day to see "fairness and justice prevail." David then sets out to explore the issue and find proof in support of Oxford's authorship. Along the way Howe introduces readers to vignettes about Giordano Bruno, Fermat's last theorem, ciphers and much more. While David fails to find the proof he seeks, the book concludes with his conviction that Oxford was Shakespeare, and one day the truth will finally be uncovered. List price $17.00 ~ Amazon price $13.60

The de Veres of Castle Hedingham. By Verily Anderson. A Comprehensive Biography of all 20 Earls of Oxford with emphasis on the 17th. 261 pages. Generally available only through the original publisher in London, England (our amazon.com link is to their UK site). However, a limited supply are currently available (as of Oct. 2003) from The Blue Boar Shop.  To write this book, Verily Anderson traveled about the United Kingdom, Denmark, Holland, France and Italy for years, tracing the history of the 20 earls of the de Vere family. The book is fully illustrated with photographs, line drawings, maps and family trees. An indispensible reference for anyone wishing to see the 17th Earl (Edward de Vere) in the full context of his illustrious family history.

The Mysterious William Shakespeare, The Myth and the Reality. Revised 2nd Edition (1992). By Charlton Ogburn, Jr. 892 pages. Amazon price $40.00

"The scholarship is surpassing - brave, original and full of surprise, - and in the hands of so gifted a writer it fairly lights up the sky." David McCullough, historian.

"The definitive book on the man behind the name Shakespeare ... perhaps the single most revolutionary book in the whole of Shakespearean scholarship ... Once and for all Ogburn seems to me to prove the case for Oxford." Kevin Kelly, drama critic, Boston Globe

The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. (2nd edition, 1992) By Michael H. Hart. 556 pages. List price: $22.50 ~ Amazon price: $18.00

The entry for no.31 ("William Shakespeare" in the first edition) now reads (in the 1992 2nd edition): "Edward de Vere, better known as 'William Shakespeare'."

 

 

The Man Who Was Shakespeare : A Summary of the Case Unfolded in The Mysterious William Shakespeare : The Myth and the Reality. by Charlton Ogburn. (Paperback, 1995) 94 pages. List price $5.95 ~ Amazon price $4.76

A Question of Will. By Lynne Kositsky. 141 pages. A young adult novel that tells its readers about the Shakespeare authorship question through a thoroughly entertaining action-adventure story. In this case the young protagonist (a high school girl named Willow) accidently travels back in time to the Elizabethan era where she winds up meeting all the key players in the authorship saga (Shaksper, de Vere, etc.) and participating in their lives, even becoming an actor at the Globe and (a la Shakespeare in Love) at one point winding up on stage as a girl playing a boy playing a girl playing a boy. Her adventure in time concludes with a happy ending: her trip back through time has altered time, and once back in the 20th century she finds that MacBeth is now listed as being written by "Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford." Amazon price $5.95

Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose by Elisabeth Sears. 244 pages. $21.95.
This book is now available only from Meadow Geese Press.

The controversial, provocative book from a former President of the Shakespeare Oxford Society. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Sears' version of the theory that the relationship between the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare (aka Edward de Vere) was a family one, this little book is bound to change forever how one reads and interprets Shake-Speare's Sonnets.
 

        The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Claimants, their Champions & Detractors. Includes a Chronological Annotated Bibliography. By Warren Hope and Kim Holston. 255 pages. Currently out of print; Amazon promises to try to find used copies for anyone placing an order through them.

"Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere, the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, by J. Thomas Looney. Paperback facsimile reprint of the original 1920 first edition. 465 pages.
Available from The Blue Boar Shop. Item SP4 ($20.00, plus P&H)

"Shakespeare Identified is one of the most ingenious pieces of minute, circumstantial evidence extant in literary criticism." Frederick Tabor Cooper, from a review of the first edition, 1920

"Shakespeare Identified is destined to occupy, in modern Shakespearean controversy, the place Darwin's great work [Origin of the Species] occupies in evolutionary theory. It may be superseded, but all modern discussions of the authorship of the plays and poems stems from it, and owes the author an inestimable debt." William McFee, from the Preface to the 1948 edition.

"In his book Shakespeare, In Fact, Irvin Matus promises (p.23) to challenge the evidence for the 17th Earl of Oxford as the true author of the works of Shakespeare. While demonstrating extensive research into primary sources, the book fails to address the principal evidence against the Stratford man and for Oxford as the author of Shakespeare. It tries to appear to be doing so, but in fact it does not. ... [Matus] dwells on a multitude of miscellaneous details, most of them irrelevant to the main anti-Stratfordian and Oxfordian arguments. He simply sidesteps the basic anti-Stratfordian and Oxfordian arguments while chopping the air with his sword and pretending to skewer the Oxfordians." (From Richard Whalen's review in The Ever Reader, No. 1, Fall 1995)

Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography. By Diana Price. 376 pages. Published in October 2000, this new book on the Shakespeare authorship question makes a significant contribution to the debate. Price has brought together in one book all the arguments and documents that have lead generations of readers to doubt the Stratford man's authorship of the Shakespeare Canon. The book makes it as clear as can be that Stratfordian claims that we know as much about Shakespeare as about any other playwrights of the Elizabethan/Jacobean era are simply not true. Shakespeare stands alone among his contemporaries as a man with no literary biography, and no literary paper trail. This book is a must read for anyone involved in the authorship debate, and the perfect gift to give to anyone who still can't let go of Stratford. Amazon price $39.95

Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. By Richard Whalen. 183 pages. List price: $38.95 ~ Amazon price $38.95.

"In a clear, concise, eminently readable style, Whalen takes the reader on a most entertaining and instructive tour of the great debate. Much has been written on the Shakespeare authorship question, but Whalen's brisk summary of it should lead to a much wider understanding of the surprisingly strong case for Oxford and the shaky foundation under the pedastal of the Bard of Avon." From the Foreward by Ambassador Paul H. Nitze.

 

Who Were Shakespeare? The ultimate who-dun-it. by Ron Allen (Silverado Press, 1998). 191 pages, List price $14.95 ~ Amazon price $11.96. This new book provides a number of interesting lists and documents in support of its thesis that the Earl of Oxford collaborated with the Stratford man in creating the Shakespeare Canon. Definitely a minority view, but the book does provide an interesting introduction to the authorship issue.

Who Wrote Shakespeare? By John F. Michell (1996, 1999, Paperback) 272 pages List price $17.95 ~ Amazon price $ 14.36

"Was the most famous poet and writer of all time a fraud and a plagiarist? Was Shakespeare the 'upstart crow' described by Greene as strutting in borrowed feathers, or Jonson's 'Poet-Ape' who patched plays together from others' works? Was the name merely a pseudonym for a well-known contemporary figure?... John Michell's enthralling investigation of the many claims and counter-claims reads like a series of detective stories. He lays out the evidence and the arguments for the various candidates, not forgetting Shakespeare himself, and provides a drily humorous commentary on the research and prejudices of their champions while adding new insights of his own. By the end of the book, even the most faithful disciples of the Bard will find themselves questioning, 'Who Wrote Shakespeare?'" (From the card catalog discription.)

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Recommended Reading - Other Shakespeare Books:

Dr. Frances Rippy, former Director of Graduate Studies in English at Ball State University, notes in the Foreword that Shakespeare's history plays reveal him serving not only as "a political propagandist for the Tudor monarchy," but also as "an apologist for the Protestant Reformation in England," defending not only the realm but the Crown and the Anglican Church as well. For author Dr. Daniel Wright this view of Shakespeare's purpose in writing the history plays was significant in his eventually accepting (and now actively promoting) Edward de Vere as the true author of the Shakespeare Canon (Dr. Wright now heads the Dept. of Humanities at Concordia University (Portland, OR), and in 1997 founded the Edward de Vere Studies Conference, held each spring on the Concordia campus).

Although the operant premises of this book are implicity Stratfordian, Patterson's theoretical approach to what she calls the "hermeneutics of censorship" leads in an inevitably post-Stratfordian direction:

...there is evidence, if we look carefully, of a highly sophisticated system of oblique communications, of unwritten rules whereby writers could communicate with readers or audiences (among whom were the very same authorities who were responsible for state censorship) without producing direct confrontation." (p.53)

The Friendly Shakespeare : A Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Best of The Bard. by Norrie Epstein. (Paperback, 1994) List price $15.59 ~ Amazon price $13.56

Kill all the Lawyers? : Shakespeare's Legal Appeal. by Daniel J. Kornstein. (Hardcover, 1994) 274 pages. List price $35.00 ~ Amazon price $24.50

The Purpose of Playing : Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of Elizabethan Theatre. by Louis Montrose. (Paperback, 1996) List price $15.95 ~ Amazon price $15.95

Yet another close look at what many Oxfordians consider to be a critical, though often overlooked aspect of theatre in Elizabethan times --politics. Part I deals with "Drama, Theatre, Society, and the State" while Part II examines "The Shaping Fantasies of A Midsummer's Night Dream."

"For the first time in the history of Shakespeare criticism, an orthodox critic has taken up the theortical problem posed by the First Folio's enigmatic character. Although her intentions are orthodox beyond reproach, Leah Marcus' Puzzling Shakespeare is on my list of the top ten orthodox Shakespeare books I love to hate. Indeed, it is the first book by anyone to begin the job of placing the curious semiotics of the Folio in a proper comparative light." Roger Stritmatter.

Shakespeare and Ovid. by Jonathan Bate. (Paperback, 1993) List price $22.00 ~ Amazon price: $22.00

Prof. Jonathan Bate (Univ. of Liverpool) has researched a detailed comparison of the original Ovidian myth of Venus and Adonis and Shakespeare's version in his famous 1593 poem Venus and Adonis (dedicated to the Earl of Southampton). Among Bate's many insights on what Shakespeare added to Ovid is this: Bate states that Shakespeare clearly changed the story in such a way that Venus not only seduces the young Adonis in Shakespeare's V&A, but also that Venus can only be Adonis' mother! If this analysis is true, then why did Shakespeare do it? And why did he then make such a public offering of his V&A to the 20-year old Southampton in 1593?

"In her compelling reassessment of Shakespeare's historicity, Donna Hamilton rejects the notion that the official censorship of the day [1590s] prevented the stage from representing contemporary debates concerning the relations among church, state, and individual. She argues instead that throughout his career Shakespeare positioned his writing politically and ideologically in relation to the ongoing and changing church-state controversies and in ways that have much in common with the shifts on these issues identified with the Leicester-Sidney-Essex-Southampton-Pembroke group." (From the dustjacket commentary.)
For Oxfordians, such reassessments as Hamilton's would seem to compound the problems with the Stratford attribution of the authorship, but, on the other hand, they would make perfect sense if one accepted Edward de Vere as Shakespeare.

Prof. Marjorie Garber (Harvard University) explores the multi-faceted role of writing that appears throughout Shakespeare's plays --characters writing letters/notes, deciphering letters/notes, and understanding or mis-understanding what's happening in the world of the play based on what they've just read. In an early chapter Garber comments upon the centuries-old authorship debate as yet another facet of this "writing" sub-text in Shakespeare. Her book is an interesting, thoughtful discussion of writing and authorship in Shakespeare, no matter which side one takes in the Shakespeare authorship debate itself.

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