{"product_id":"contested-will-by-james-shapiro-9780571235773","title":"Contested Will","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor two hundred years after Shakespeare's death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then, dozens of rival candidates— including Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford—have been proposed as their true author.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eContested Will\u003c\/em\u003e unravels the mystery of when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote the plays. Among those questioning authorship were such leading writers and artists as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, and Sir Derek Jacobi.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShakespeare scholar James 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf \u003cem\u003eContested Will\u003c\/em\u003e does not end the authorship question once and for all, it will nonetheless irrevocably change the nature of the debate by confronting what's really contested: are the plays and poems of Shakespeare autobiographical, and if so, do they hold the key to the question of who wrote them?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47596050055404,"sku":"9780571235773","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/b1877ea006eebc17e1e521a552c5f0a0.jpg?v=1777937039","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/contested-will-by-james-shapiro-9780571235773","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}