Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Shakespeare authorship researchers are beginning to embrace the publishing options available through e-publishing. Several important anti-Strat books have been recently released for Kindle and other e-readers: http://www.amazon.com/Hamlet-Scottish-Succession-ebook/dp/B006Q3YQT6/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324856144&sr=1-7 Hamlet and the Scottish Succession by Lilian Winstanley ( edited by Mark Alexander Publisher Text.com, Dec. 2011 $0.99 http://www.amazon.com/I-Come-Bury-Shaksper-ebook/dp/B006KAMQ10/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324937916&sr=1-1 I Come to Bury Shakespeare by Steve McClarran Publisher Stephen Steinberg, Dec 2011 $9.99 http://www.amazon.com/Apocryphal-William-Shakespeare-Authorship-ebook/dp/B006CRCGXY/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324938080&sr=1-1-spell The Apocraphal William Shakespeare by Sabrina Feldman Dog Ear Publishing, Nov. 2011 (also in paperback) $9.99 http://store.untreedrea...

A year ago in December 2010, when we Oberons gathered for our annual holiday feast at Tom and Rosey Hunter’s house, Tom was filled with enthusiasm for an unpublished work that he had just read, Steve McClarran’s I Come to Bury Shaksper , now available for the Kindle at Amazon. Upon receiving McClarran’s manuscript in November 2010, Tom had told the author, with characteristic warmth and humor:  “We will be getting together with the family to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. I have a feeling that I will be huddled up in a corner with your book. Just hope I don't get gravy all over it. Will report back as soon as I have something substantive to say or as soon as I think I have something substantive to say, whichever occurs first.” Within days, he reported to McClarran: “I have been waiting for the let down, and it hasn't come. The book gets better and better as it goes. The probing jabs have become body blows, and I hear air whooshing out of the Stratford...

Well, somebody's been talking about Richard Roe's Shakespeare Guide to Italy (Harper Perennial, Nov. 8, 2011) because last night (Dec. 12, 2011) on Charlie Rose , Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Michael Boyd inadvertently revealed that Roe's book was on his mind. Boyd appeared as a guest in Rose's "Why Shakespeare?" series where he happily held forth on the nature of all things Shakespearean. During a discussion of how he chose which Shakespeare plays to direct, Rose asked Boyd if he had to be older to tackle directing King Lear and Boyd responded in the negative. "Young people can imagine," Boyd said. "Just as an Englishman could imagine Italy in the English Renaissance." That was it -- no other discussion of imagination or Englishmen or Italy or the Renaissance, not to mention Italian references in Shakespeare or any bedamned books about any such thing. I cannot imagine that Boyd had read Roe's book; if he had, ...