Contested Will by James Shapiro

Bestselling and prizewinning author James Shapiro talks about his new book Contested Will – the definitive investigation into who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

For 200 years after Shakespeare’s death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then, dozens of rival candidates have been proposed as the true author.

Shapiro’s fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined.

Contested Will is the definitive exploration into the reasons why Shakespeare's authorship of the plays has been questioned.