Keir Cutler's 3,000-word monograph titled, "Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree" is now available as a free ebook on Smashwords. The publisher says:
The true story of "Shakespeare's Mulberry Tree" of Stratford-upon-Avon is not generally known, even though it was seminal to the development of William Shakespeare as the cultural icon he is today. Keir Cutler, who possesses a PhD in theater, tells the fascinating real life account in this short and revealing essay.
Beginning with Shakespeare’s death in 1616, Cutler succinctly takes the reader on a historical journey that provides food for thought for the open-minded thinker. If William of Stratford was the writer of the famous plays and poems, why was nothing ever found in his hometown connecting this man to the great works? Why are there no plays, poems or even any letters in Shakespeare’s own hand? And most significantly, why would the mulberry tree in back of his former home in Stratford become “one of the most valuable assets of the town?”
“Shakespeare’s Mulberry Tree” is a true story few professors ever tell their students because it is difficult to maintain the strict orthodoxy that there is no Shakespeare Authorship Question once this important piece of history is known.
Stratfordians are still fascinated by arboreal relics; the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in the person of head of research and knowledge, Paul Edmondson, has just completed a summer-long tour of Shakespeare festivals in the US -- handing out pieces of a cedar tree from Stratford-on-Avon. See: "Shakespeare Birthplace Trust hands out relics of the True Cedar Tree in USA".