Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies

How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature

By: Elizabeth Winkler

Narrated by: Eunice Wong

An “extraordinarily brilliant” and “pleasurably naughty” (André Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be.

The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.”

In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo. Whisking you from London to Stratford-Upon-Avon to Washington, DC, she pulls back the curtain to show how the forces of nationalism and empire, religion and mythmaking, gender and class have shaped our admiration for Shakespeare across the centuries. As she considers the writers and thinkers—from Walt Whitman to Sigmund Freud to Supreme Court justices—who have grappled with the riddle of the plays’ origins, she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. A forgotten woman? A disgraced aristocrat? A government spy? Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeare’s plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem.

As she interviews scholars and skeptics, Winkler’s interest turns to the larger problem of historical truth—and of how human imperfections (bias, blindness, subjectivity) shape our construction of the past. History is a story, and the story we find may depend on the story we’re looking for.

“Lively” (The Washington Post), “fascinating” (Amanda Foreman), and “intrepid” (Stacy Schiff), Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies will forever change how you think of Shakespeare…and of how we as a society decide what’s up for debate and what’s just nonsense, just heresy.

©2023 Elizabeth Winkler. All rights reserved. (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Elizabeth Winkler is blessed with the clear-eyed wit of a heroine in a Shakespearean comedy. Her undoing of the fools in the forest of the authorship question is iconoclasm As You Like It—joy to behold, lesson for us all.”
—Lewis Lapham, founder of Lapham’s Quarterly

“Elizabeth Winkler’s Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies is one of the most engaging, riveting, scholarly, and challenging whodunits anyone with an interest in theater, human psychology, literature, and history can hope to read. Following in the footsteps of Henry James, Mark Twain, Mark Rylance, and innumerable other skeptics, Winkler writes about what has been essentially a centuries old theological dispute about the origins of Shakespeare’s astounding body of work like a Shakespearean drama itself: full of complex characters with false reputations and deceptive appearances.”
—Bessel van der Kolk, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps Score

“No, Elizabeth Winkler doesn’t reveal the true identity of the writer Ruth Bader Ginsburg termed “the literary genius known by the name William Shakespeare.” But she does explain how we’ve wound up with, among an army of others, a republican Shakespeare and a monarchist Shakespeare, a Shakespeare who hated his wife and one who loved his, a Shakespeare who wrote all the plays and a Shakespeare who could not write at all. Along her intrepid way, Winkler charts, with refreshing clarity, the much-contested ground underfoot, studded with flinty convictions, gnarled fictions, and a surprising number of land mines.”
—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary

The debate

As a PhD in science and engineering, I was fascinated by the different approaches players in this debate took to support and advocate for their side. I recognized many analogies in my own field, particularly when postulating new theories to recognized authorities, though not to the degrees highlighted in this book, thank goodness.
The focus on human biases and behaviors, how people were treating each other, added a dimension that I found intriguing and portions of this book have strengthened my own motivation for self examination.
I was also excited to learn about the new technologies and models that have been employed to advance the way historical interpretations can be analyzed ( though I had to laugh at the often misuse of new technologies to distort, something not uncommon to any scientific field of study, though whether out of intent or ignorance is another debate).
I also really enjoyed the narrator, her pacing and tone was on point. I do have to admit, however, that I went into the book assuming the narrator WAS the author up until the very end of the epilogue… yep, I fell into an unconscious bias with an un-investigated assumption, which also made me have to laugh.
Regardless of whether you are a devout Shakespeare lover or have a strong appreciation for the works (like me), I think there is something for everyone in this book.

Eye-opening

It’s amazing how much of our reality is built upon myths, legends, and lies, and this book shines a light on all three with regards to the authorship question. While we might never know the ground truth, I think this discourse is an important reminder that great art often requires many hands to make it happen, regardless of whose name headlines the playbill.

Well researched and very engaging journalism

Must read! It validated my experience as a young woman in academia who was scoffed at for asking “unimportant questions” about women and their experiences in the Great Books. Thank you Elizabeth for standing up to academic thuggery with grace and intelligence.

A Fascinating examination of the Shakespeare Authorship Question

The life of the man from Stratford is examined and revealed, based on historical sources, to be that of an illiterate, litigious businessman who at times fell afoul of the law. Unlike supposed biographies of the elusive Will, which are overloaded with modifying words like “imagine, probably, we assume, perhaps, and likely” words that frame guesses made about the supposed authors life, here we have history based on solid historical facts which led to a suprising hypothesis well worth examining.

Excellent!

Not at all a conspiracy theory (which was my fear). It made an Oxfordian out of me!

Excellent

This book was wonderful. I recommended it to half a dozen people before I even finished it.
While it's primarily a book about who wrote Shakespeare, it's also a book about bias, psychology, peer pressure, and orthodoxy in academia. The historical information about Shakespeare's contemporaries was fascinating, and Elizabeth Winkler made me fall a bit in love with Edward DeVere and Christopher Marlowe.

What I found most interesting was the way that some of the academics disagreed through insults. Accusing someone of being crazy isn't an argument against their position. It's just rude. And if they are resorting to rudeness, it makes their position look weak.

Excellent

Forcing me to write reviews instead of just rating stars is a stupid new audible requirement but the book was good enough to warrant a few words here and now you've read them and should go on to read the book also.

Fascinating

Even as someone who doesn’t know much about Shakespeare this was such a great listen.

Brilliant

Fascinating account of the Shakespeare authorship question. Winkler’s thorough investigation proves it- Shakespeare was a psuedonym. I love that she explores every candidate with an open mind and lays out their case thoroughly. I will definitely need to purchase a copy of this book for reference.

Well researched, well rounded

I have to admit that I’d never heard of any authorship controversy until I watched Anonymous and the documentary “Last Will and Testament” (produced by the Anonymous director). I can’t say that I’m any more than someone who is much more interested in the text thanks to those two Oxfordian-slanted movies. This book includes most of those Oxfordian points but also expands past the Oxfordian theory and includes many others. It is obvious that Ms. Weaver is very knowledgeable and has researched this topic ad nauseam. I really love the analogy of Shakespeare as a god, Stratfordians as the orthodox clergy, and discussion of any other author as heresy. This is something I felt but couldn’t put words to after watching “Last Will and Testament.” Stanley Wells and Jonathon Bate seem to be going into arguments that don’t directly address the questions posed by the Anti-Stratfordians. I have always wondered if that was due to selective editing or something else. I would really like to hear their true responses to these statements. Although it’s obvious that Ms. Weaver attempted to get that, there is nothing here that directly rebuts the Anti-Stratfordians. Equating the questions about the Stratfordian man’s authorship to questioning the holocaust is just one ad hominem fallacy that just gets in the way of any real discussion. Ms. Weaver also introduces several players in both camps that I will just have read to expand my understanding more. But, for me at the end of it, I’d like to understand what the writing really means. As someone who speaks American English of the 21st century, any interpretation of what the author(s) were thinking, writing, saying helps me get past the words that, while they are written in English, are defined quite differently. The symbolism, emotion, meaning can only be enhanced by a greater understanding of the time and people at play here.