Chasing Shakespeares

Categories: Staff Picks , Fiction

The publishing news of the day is The Lost Symbol, the new novel by Dan Brown of (need I tell you?) The Da Vinci Code fame.  Harry Potter himself hardly got more hype than symbologist Robert Langdon is getting this week.

If you're in the line for Brown's book--or have no intention of getting in line for it!--there are plenty of other historical puzzlers to enjoy.  We posted a list  back in 2004.

One of my favorites is Sarah Smith's Chasing Shakespeares.  It's a really enjoyable work of scholarly conjecture and chase.  About that other famous controversy, you know. 

Grad student Joe Roper works in the archives of a Boston university, where he happens on a letter that may prove beyond a doubt that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare but was a front for the Earl of Oxford. 

Of course, if the letter is authentic, the discovery will make Joe's career.  It will also ruin that of his mentor, who is about to publish the long-awaited second volume of his Shakespeare biography.  It will also (annoyingly) prove right wealthy, glamorous Harvard grad student Posy Gould, who's of the Oxford camp.

Posy persuades Joe to go to London to have the letter authenticated, and the two engage in a research race through libraries and castles to find the truth. 

Smith comes up with some fascinating angles on the most famous of literary controversies.  English majors and mystery buffs will both enjoy the book.