In the gritty streets of Elizabethan London, a lady of the evening named Dorothy Tearsheet harbors an incredible secret – her tears possess the power to heal. When a mischievous fairy curses the city with an uncontrollable laughter plague, Doll must assemble a motley crew to save her friend and break the spell. Aided by a drunken knight, a sharp-tongued playwright, and an eccentric apothecary, their quest leads them to the one man who can rewrite reality itself – William Shakespeare. Armed with the Bard's magic quill, Doll must weave a tale of courage, friendship, and unlikely heroism to defeat the fairy's mischief and restore London to its former glory.

Harold Bloom, the doyen of American literary critics and author of 'The Western Canon', has spent a professional lifetime reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. In this magisterial interpretation, Bloom explains Shakespeare's genius in a radical and provocative re-reading of the plays.

"The plan of this work [is] ... to illustrate the life of Sir John Falstaff exclusively from the most striking passages in his career, as invented by Shakespeare"--Preface