Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

From the best-selling and prize-winning author of '1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare', an investigation into who wrote Shakespeare's plays.

'I devoured this book. Shapiro guides us through this strange history with a beguiling mixture of scepticism and sympathy. Packed with many fine pen-portraits, it's a timely contribution to a vexed debate'. Simon Russell Beale.

'Shapiro's book is … authoritative, lucid and devastatingly funny, and its brief concluding statement of the case for Shakespeare is masterly'. Peter Carey, Sunday Times.

'Unlike most other books on the subject ... it is a pleasure to read. Like its splendid predecessor, '1599: A year in the Life of William Shakespeare' (2005), it is briskly paced, cleverly detailed, elegantly argued, and never forgets that for all the complexities and quiddities of the material, the writing of history is essentially the telling of a story (or in this case, the story of a story)'. Charles Nicholl, Times Literary Supplement.