"Plunging into the complexities of Elizabethan history, Hess raises a host of provocative questions about Shakespeare's identity and the controversial character of the 17th earl of Oxford, the leading candidate for authorship honors. Wide reading informs his answers, and he doesn't shy from proposing linkages, motivations and ingenious theories to make sense of the historical records and answer the many questions about Oxford's life. His work on Don Juan of Austria may well prove to have opened a new perspective on that military leader's connection to Shakespeare." -Richard F. Whalen, author, Shakespeare: Who Was He? "The Dark Side of Shakespeare is an original and stimulating book that takes the authorship debate in unexpected new directions. Even those who reject its conclusions will find plenty to think about." -Joseph Sobran, author, "Alias Shakespeare"

The "Dark Side of Shakespeare" trilogy by W. Ron Hess has been his 20-year undertaking to try to fill-in many of the gaps in knowledge of Shakespeare's personality and times. The first two volumes investigated wide-ranging topics, including the key intellectual attributes that Shakespeare exhibited in his works, including the social and political events of the 1570s to early-1600s. This was when Hess believes the Bard's works were being "originated" (the earliest phases of artistry, from conception or inspiration to the first of multiple iterations of "writing"). Hess highlights a peculiar fascination that the Bard had with the half-brother of Spain's Philip II, the heroic Don Juan of Austria, or in 1571 "the Victor of Lepanto." From that fascination, as determined by characters based on Don Juan in the plays (e.g., the villain "Don John" in "Much Ado")and other matters, Hess even made so bold as to propose a series of phases from the mid-1570s to mid-80s in which he feels each Shakespeare play had been originated, or some early form of each play then existed -- if not in writing, at least in the Bard's imagination. Thus, the creative process Hess describes is a vastly more protracted on than most Shakespeare scholars would admit to -- the absurd notion that the Bard would jot off the lines of a work in a few days or weeks and then immediately have it performed on the public stage or published shortly thereafter still dominates orthodox dating systems for the canon. Hess draws on the works of many other scholars for using "topical allusions" within each work in order to set practical limits for when the "origination" and subsequent "alterations" of each play occurred. In the trilogy's Volume III, Hess continues to amplify a heroic "knight-errant" personality type that Shakespeare's very "pen-name" may have been drawn from, a type which envied and transcended the brutal chivalry of Don Juan. This was channeled into a patriotic anti-Spanish and pro-British imperial spirit -- particularly with regard to reforming and improving the English language so that it could rival the Greco-Roman, Italian, and Frenchpoetic traditions -- one-upping the best that the greats of antiquity and the Renaissance had achieved in literature. In fact, as vast as the story is that Hess tells in his three volumes, there is a huge volume of material he is making available out of print (on his webpage at http://home.earthlink.net/~beornshall/index.html and via a "Volume IV" that he plans to offer on CD for a nominal cost via his e-mail [email protected]). Among this added material is a searchable 1,000-page Chronological listing of "Everything" that Hess deems relevant to Shakespeare and his age, or to the providing of the canon to modern times. Hess feels that discernable patterns can be detected through that chronology that help to illuminate the roles of others in the Bard's circle, such as Anthony Munday and Thomas Heywood. The network of 16th and 17th century "Stationers" (printers, publishers, and book sellers) and their often curious doings provide many of those patterns. Hess invites his readers to help to continuously update the Chronology and other materials, so that those can remain worthwhile research resources for all to use. For, the mysteries of Shakespeare and his age can only be unraveled through fully understanding the patterns within.

"For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright; Who art as black as hell, as dark as night." —William Shakespeare, Sonnet 147 In the boldest imagining of the era since Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth, a finalist for the Italian Premio del Castello del Terriccio, this spellbinding novel of witchcraft, poetry, and passion, brings to life Aemilia Lanyer, the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's Sonnets—the playwright's muse and his one true love. The daughter of a Venetian musician but orphaned as a young girl, Aemilia Bassano grows up in the court of Elizabeth I, becoming the Queen's favorite. She absorbs a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a striking young woman with a sharp mind and a quick tongue. Now brilliant, beautiful, and highly educated, she becomes mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and Queen's cousin. But her position is precarious; when she falls in love with court playwright William Shakespeare, her fortunes change irrevocably. A must-read for fans of Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring) and Sarah Dunant (The Birth of Venus), Sally O'Reilly's richly atmospheric novel compellingly re-imagines the struggles for power, recognition, and survival in the brutal world of Elizabethan London. She conjures the art of England's first professional female poet, giving us a character for the ages—a woman who is ambitious and intelligent, true to herself, and true to her heart.

Set in the near future, this dark coming-of-age fable tells the story of David Faulkner, whose dysfunctional family fuels his ambition to escape his rough blue-collar neighbourhood on Chicago's south side. His angelic good looks coupled with his ethereal talent make him the Leonardo DiCaprio of his generation. In this era in which everything is magnified, where leading movie stars once made $20 million per picture, David -- now Darian Fable -- commands five times that amount. His decision to abandon Hollywood, a fabulous career, untold riches, and retreat to a bucolic estate in Connecticut sets in motion a chain of events that threatens both the lives and careers of some of the most important powers in the entertainment industry -- including his own.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

A book by Spain's greatest living writer weaves fiction and fact into a completely original and unforgettable hybrid. Called by its author a "false novel," Dark Back of Time begins with the tale of the odd effects of publishing All Souls, his witty and sardonic 1989 Oxford novel. All Souls is a book Marías swears to be fiction, but which its "characters"--the real-life dons and professors and bookshop owners who have "recognized themselves"--fiercely maintain to be a roman à clef. With the sleepy world of Oxford set into fretful motion by a world that never "existed," Dark Back of Time begins an odyssey into the nature of identity and of time. Marías weaves together autobiography, a legendary kingdom, strange ghostly literary figures, halls of mirrors, a one-eyed pilot, a curse in Havana, and a bullet lost in Mexico.

The many con men, gangsters, and drug lords portrayed in popular culture are examples of the dark side of the American dream. Viewers are fascinated by these twisted versions of heroic American archetypes, like the self-made man and the entrepreneur. Applying the critical skills he developed as a Shakespeare scholar, Paul A. Cantor finds new depth in familiar landmarks of popular culture. He invokes Shakespearean models to show that the concept of the tragic hero can help us understand why we are both repelled by and drawn to figures such as Vito and Michael Corleone or Walter White. Beginning with Huckleberry Finn and ending with The Walking Dead, Cantor also uncovers the link between the American dream and frontier life. In imaginative variants of a Wild West setting, popular culture has served up disturbing—and yet strangely compelling—images of what happens when people move beyond the borders of law and order. Cantor demonstrates that, at its best, popular culture raises thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.