The Shakespeare Guide to Italy

“Exciting, original, and convincing. . . . This book is essential reading for all concerned with who really wrote the works of Shakespeare. A thrilling journey of discovery." —Sir Derek Jacobi, Shakespearean actor, Associate Artist, Royal Shakespeare Company

Equal parts literary detective story and vivid travelogue, The Shakespeare Guide to Italy chronicles author Richard Paul Roe’s thirty-year quest to find the locations in which Shakespeare set his ten Italian plays—delivering a text which will forever change our understanding of how to read the Bard of Avon and irrevocably alter our vision of who William Shakespeare really was. 

More than 150 images illustrate and enhance Roe’s captivating narrative, illuminating his lifelong journey and shining a light into the depths of Shakespeare’s experiences in Italy. Until now, Shakespeare’s use of Italian backdrops—Romeo and Juliet’s Verona, Othello’s Venice, Much Ado About Nothing’s Messina, to name a few—has been the source of controversy and conjecture. With The Shakespeare Guide to Italy, Roe’s meticulous study reveals the secrets that have eluded scholars for centuries.

In addition to executing a private legal practice for more than forty years, Richard Paul Roe undertook a lifelong study of Shakespeare’s Italian Plays. A recipient of degrees in English literature and European history from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as a juris doctor summa cum laude from the Southwestern University School of Law, he lived in Pasadena, California, until his death in 2010.