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.

Beautifully written and full of nuance

Elizabeth leads with an infectious curiosity and presents the topic with a great deal of nuance. She weaves a complex but very readable narrative that interweaves history, Elizabeth’s conversations with contemporary scholars, and a look at many factors that may have led to this subject becoming so extremely contentious in the modern era.

As a reader who approached the book without much prior knowledge and no pre-formed opinions on the subject Shakespeare authorship, I really appreciated the honesty exhibited throughout when facing ambiguity and details which may have many different possible interpretations. The book does not tell the reader what they should think. It instead challenges the reader to think for themselves about the suppositions of history as written, their consequences, and ultimately to reconsider to what degree the authorship matters, and why.

If you want a book to doggedly argue the case for a single potential author to the exclusion of all other possibility, this is not going to be that book. In my opinion, this book is far superior.

Thoroughly enjoyed

Despite my ignorance of the subject, I was very pleasantly surprised that it was so easy to understand and so full of intriguing perspectives. It's very well narrated and I've listened to it twice so far. It is a very thorough compilation of all the arguments for and against the Man from Stratford upon Avon being the true Shakespeare. One thing I appreciated as a novice was how it was written/narrated to keep Shakespeare the man separate from the theoretical author Shakespeare; I was never unsure which one she was speaking of. Another thing is how the book wasn't just the arguments of the different camps, but it also questioned why they're still so hotly debated after 400+ years. You'll learn so much about Shakespeare the man and other various potential authors, as well as the Renaissance culture across Europe that helped lead to all the controversy.

Thrilling!

As someone who is “new” to the authorship question, I found this book to be an excellent insight into the wild world of Shakespeare enthusiasts and the different perspectives therein. It read like a whodunnit, with not a dull moment in sight, and sheds light on the oft too-ignored phenomena of academics forgetting to be academic. I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Shakespeare, mysteries, or human psychology.

outstanding

The argument is well explored, and the pros and cons of each possible alternative are presented. The reader is left to make a decision as to what they believe and altought the passion of the author is present in every page it is never mean or over powering.