The Shakespeare Transcripts

When William Shakespeare was summoned to the halls of justice to answer the charge by Sir Francis Bacon that the famous actor from Stratford-upon-Avon had wrongfully claimed authorship of the play, "Twelfth Night," then playing at the Inns of Court, Shakespeare turned for help to the crafty solicitor, Harry Sylvester. The courtroom drama that followed, orchestrated by Sylvester's beautiful and brilliant daughter, is set in the background of the rich tapestry of Elizabethan England. The battle between Shakespeare and Bacon concludes in a moment of high emotion and surprise.
Four hundred years later, in Washington, D.C., an alert scientist aided by his attorney-daughter, and an aspiring young Shakespearean scholar, uncover a clue to the possible existence of the four-century old records of that famous trial. This discovery leads them to an exciting search, a budding romance, a challenge by a renowned Shakespearean authority, and into a gripping finale, joining the two centuries and the characters in both.

Clever and amusing, this deft debut mystery by lawyer Friedlander and literature professor Kenny draws a parallel between the effort of a pompous, egotistical professor to appropriate the work of a promising graduate student and Francis Bacon's attempt to steal the work of William Shakespeare. Dr. Ernest Dalrymple, "a great walrus of a man," is a Renaissance scholar who hasn't produced an original work in a dozen years. Walter Sellars is the doctoral candidate, a Virginia farm boy and former football player whose brilliant dissertation he covets. Ellen Kolinsky, a lawyer, and her father Paul, seek Dalrymple's advice in tracing a reference in an 18th-century letter they own to Shakespeare's divorce decree. Convinced that the Church of England would not have granted a divorce to a vagabond like Shakespeare, Dalrymple suggests that Walter help them, hoping the young man will discredit himself. The search for the decree, from its start in the British Library to its auction-house conclusion, is suspenseful and fascinating. So is the historical tale, in which Bacon seeks an injunction against Shakespeare, who falls in love with his lawyer's daughter, whom he immortalizes as the dark lady of the sonnets. Dalrymple gets his just deserts and, though Will doesn't get his girl, Walter does.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A farm boy and football player, Walter Sellers is the antithesis of a Renaissance scholar, which makes his brilliant idea for a doctoral dissertation particularly galling to his director, Professor Dalrymple. The latter is a man desperately in need of a project to sustain his respected but failing reputation in the academic world. Walter's gawky appearance also nonplusses the Kolinskys (father and daughter), who are none too pleased when the Shakespearean scholar they have come to consult about an obscure document farms out their quest to his graduate student. However, Walter proves more than equal to the quest and to his professor's chicanery, setting in motion a plot of historical and academic intrigue. Recommended for armchair Shakespeareans.
- Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.