Mass misinformation did not begin in the 2020s. It began at least four centuries earlier, when the Secret Service of Queen Elizabeth I faked the murder of England's wildly popular playwright Christopher Marlowe to save him from imminent execution for heresy-and to enable him to continue writing his plays under a pseudonym-"William Shakespeare"
That ruse was meant to be just temporary, while Marlowe lived. But once launched, the fake name stuck and became myth. Centuries later, with the British Empire collapsing, the country's cultural guardians realized that the tale of William Shakespeare-the village boy who'd become the greatest writer in the world-had become a great national treasure. The colonies were failing, but the language Shakespeare had helped to build was ascendant. It had become the global medium of trade, technology, diplomacy, and popular culture: the Empire of English!
In the 1960s, an implicit agreement was reached among leaders of the English government and academia that the name William Shakespeare-the "brand" of the language that now ruled the world-must never be replaced. "Marlowe" must be forgotten! In the years since then, a group of independent literary investigators has found long-hidden evidence that Marlowe's murder had been staged. That group's findings are now ready to share.
No previous book has recounted, with a rich trove of hard evidence, the epic travels and troubles-and life-changing loves and losses-that compelled Marlowe to write his sonnets and plays. This is the first book in four centuries to tell the full, 58-year story of the man who was the real Shakespeare.