In the early sixteenth century, a precocious young nobleman draws the attention of the Elizabethan court--and of The Virgin Queen herself. A writer and patron of the arts, Edward de Vere is volatile, controversial--and brilliant. He leaves a trail of women and scandal in his wake. But his plays, when he's in the queen's good graces, charm the court. His sonnets turn feelings into sound. Yet the rules of the court say a nobleman may not publish. An earl's name is too sacred for the theater. If de Vere must write, he must do so anonymously, and employ a runner, an almost illiterate cobbler's son from Stratford, to claim his words. Newton Frohlich, an attorney and the author of the celebrated historical novel 1492, spent fifteen years researching unexplored questions about the poet and playwright we today know as Shakespeare. His is an intimate tour of English castles, Venetian canals, and a complex man who penned the most beloved works of the English language.--