Elizabeth Winkler’s book is a reasoned and reasonable inquiry into orthodoxy and how it is established — and how entrenched a notion can become. There have always existed questions regarding how the greatest literature in the English language came to be. Which is more likely, that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for someone who was highly educated, multilingual, and well-traveled, or the name of someone with no verifiable education and no evidence of even owning a book? Orthodox English literature scholars refuse to examine the mountain of historical evidence or even acknowledge there is an authorship problem. Ms. Winkler’s book examines why the issue is so radioactive among traditional academics and how difficult it is for this or any orthodoxy to be overturned.
