DVS Reviews

reviews by members of the de vere society showing the range of our research

Reviews 2023

Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies

By Elizabeth Winkler (July 2023)
Reviewer: Brigadier General Jack Shuttleworth

Reviews 2022

Oxford Voices

Comprehensive review making it easier to navigate this fascinating online publication
Reviewer: Jonathan Foss

Shakespearean Authorship Trust Conference 2022

SAT conference held online via Zoom - ‘Volumes that I prize above my dukedom: Shakespeare’s Sources’
Reviewer: Amanda Hinds

The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth

An Early Play by the Real Shakespeare, Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford
Reviewer: Richard Malim

The Living Record

Book by Hank Whittemore. This review concludes that the book is ‘a must-read for those looking for new developments in the life of Shakespeare and as food for thought for any Shakespeare enthusiast.
Reviewer: Jennifer Pommer

Shakespeare’s Revolution

The author’s previous book The Making of Shakespeare is greatly expanded to include Oxford’s juvenilia, the aftermath of his career and his posthumous reputation.
Reviewer: Elizabeth Imlay

Shakespeare’s Revolution

Appreciation by Geoffrey Eyre, with the conclusion: ‘It is a worthy addition to the worldwide authorship quest for truth. It is a delight to read and repays careful study
Reviewer: Geoffrey Eyre

Shakespeare and Religio Mentis

A Study of Christian Hermetism in Four Plays by Jane Nelson A detailed ‘preview’ of limited information available that should ‘generate huge interest amongst both its professional and lay readership.
Reviewer: Robert Baxter

Reviews 2021

Hamlet

Theatre performance starring Sir Ian McKellen at the Theatre Royal, Windsor
Reviewer: Richard Vaughan Davies (October 2021)

Shakespeare Revolutionized

Book by James A. Warren (2021)
Reviewer: Heward Wilkinson (October 2021)

North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard’s Work

Book by Michael Blanding (March 2021)
Reviewer: Patrick O'Brien (July 2021)

In the Shadow of Shakespeare

Book by Richard Vaughan Davies (November 2020)
Reviewer: Jennifer Pommer (April 2021)

Shakespeare: The Truth Behind the Name

Documentary film by Robin Phillips (2021)
Reviewer: Yvonne Cheal (January 2021)

Renaissance Man: The World of Thomas Watson

Book by Ian Johnson (July 2020)
Reviewer: Kevin Gilvary (January 2021)

Reviews 2020

Who Wrote That? Authorship Controversies from Moses to Sholokhov

By Donald Ostrowski (June 2020)
Reviewer: Kevin Gilvary (October 2020)

The case for Edward de Vere as the real William Shakespeare: A Challenge to Conventional Wisdom

By John Milnes Baker (2020)
Reviewer: Alice Crampin (April 2020)

Shakespeare and the Resistance: The Earl of Southampton, the Essex Rebellion, and the Poems that Challenged Tudor Tyranny

By Clare Asquith (2018)
Reviewer: Tony Herbert (April 2020)

The Upstart Crow

Theatre play by Ben Elton (2020)
Reviewer: Tony Herbert (April 2020)

A Question of Will

By Lynne Kositsky (2001/2019)
Reviewer: Alice Crampin (January 2020)

Reviews 2019

Early Shakespeare Authorship Doubts

By Bryan Wildenthal (2019)
Reviewer: Alice Crampin (October 2019)

Nothing Truer Than Truth

Play by Darrol Blake (2019)
Reviewer: Eddi Jolly (October 2019)

Nothing is Truer Than Truth

Film by Cheryl Eagan-Donovan / Controversy Films (2019)
Reviewer: Tony Herbert (July 2019)

All is True

Film by Kenneth Branagh (2019)
Reviewer: Amanda Hinds (July 2019)

Hamlet’s Elsinore Revisited

By Sven F. Vedi and Gerold Wagner (2018)
Reviewer: Eddi Jolly (April 2019)

Francis Bacon’s Contribution to Shakespeare

By Barry R. Clarke (2019)
Reviewer: Eddi Jolly (April 2019)

Necessary Mischief: Exploring the Shakespeare Authorship Question

By Bonner Miller Cutting (2019)
Reviewer: Richard Malim (April 2019)

Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver

National Portrait Gallery, London (21 February – 19 May 2019)
Reviewer: James Alexander (April 2019)

Shakespeare’s Dark Lady

By John Hudson (2014)
Reviewer: James Alexander (January 2019)

Shakespeare’s Apprentice

By Ramon Jiménez (2018)
Reviewer: Amanda Hinds (January 2019)

Reviews 2018

Shakespeare’s Secrets

Novel by Aaron Tatum (2018)
Reviewer: Evans Donnell (October 2018)

Shakespeare’s Wilderness

By David Rains Wallace (2017)
Reviewer: Patricia Keeney (July 2018)

The Fictional Lives of Shakespeare

By Kevin Gilvary (2018)
Reviewer: Eddi Jolly (April 2018)

Reviews 2017

Reflections on the True Shakespeare

By Gary Goldstein (2016)
Reviewer: Alexander Waugh (January 2017)

The Great Debate: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

Alexander Waugh vs. Jonathan Bate
Reviewers: Julia Cleave and Kevin Gilvary (October 2017)

Reviews 2016

Shakespeare’s Money – How much did he make and what did this mean?

By Robert Bearman (Oxford U.P., 2016)
Reviewer: Richard Malim

The Case for Edward de Vere

By Geoffrey Eyre (2015)
Reviewer: Richard Malim (January 2016)

Reviews 2014

Mr. William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays

By Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (eds.)
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2013

Shakespeare Beyond Doubt

By Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells
Reviewer: Richard Malim

The Truth about William Shakespeare

By David Ellis
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2012

The Man Who Was Never Shakespeare

By A. J. Pointon
Reviewer: Kevin Gilvary

Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays?

By William D. Rubinstein
Reviewer: Kevin Gilvary

The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard’s Unknown Travels

By Richard Paul Roe
Reviewer: Christopher Dams

Reviews 2011

James Shapiro’s TV series ‘The King and the Playwright’

Reviewer: Richard Malim

The Man Who Was Hamlet

George Dillon’s one-man show

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

By James Shapiro
Reviewer: DVS

‘Anonymous’ film release

Director: Roland Emmerich
Reviewer: DVS

The Oxfordian Edition of Othello

Edited by Prof. Ren Draya and Richard F. Whalen
Reviewer: Christopher Dams

Shakespeare: The concealed poet

By Robert Detobel
Reviewers: Jan Scheffer and Elke Brackmann

The Man Who Was Never Shakespeare

By A. J. Pointon
Reviewer: Alexander Waugh in the Wall Street Journal Review of Books

Reviews 2010

The Lame Storyteller, Poor and Despised: Studies in Shakespeare

By Peter R. Moore
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare ?

By James Shapiro
Reviewer: Richard Malim (and Supplement)

Shakespeare and his authors: Critical perspectives on the Authorship Question (Ed: William Leahy)

Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2009

Soul of the Age – The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare

By Jonathan Bate
Reviewer: Richard Malim

The Muse as Therapist: A New Poetic Paradigm for Psychotherapy

By Heward Wilkinson
Reviewer: Richard M. Waugaman

Reviews 2008

Shakespeare Revealed

By Rene Weis
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2007

Shakespeare & Co.

By Stanley Wells
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Shakespeare Marlowe Jonson: New Directions in Biography (Eds. Mulryne and Kozuka)

Reviewer: Richard Malim
Reviewer’s note: With a bit more space I would have pointed out more clearly that ‘Sparrow’ in Guy of Warwick and ‘Shaxberd’ in the Court Revels record looks like the same sort of denigration: that Buc’s ‘teste’ reference is to a ‘minister’ (a Churchman) acting in a play, a suggestion so ludicrous as to render the suggested Stratford connection a joke (which it was, and whose?).

The Wonder Mind: Shakespeare the Thinker

By Prof A. D. Nuttall
Reviewer: Richard Malim

I Am Shakespeare

By Mark Rylance
Reviewer: John Gill

Reviews 2006

1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

By James Shapiro
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Shakespeare’s Invention of the Human

By Harold Bloom
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Fletcher – The ‘Poet-Ape’: Shadowplay

By Claire Asquith
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Pseudonymous Shakespeare

By Penny McCarthy
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2005

Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare

By Stephen Greenblatt
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Shakespeare: The Biography, an analysis of the book

By Peter Ackroyd
Reviewer: Richard Malim

Reviews 2004

Monstrous Adversary

By Alan Nelson
Observations by Kevin Gilvary, Philip Johnson and Eddi Jolly. “Since 1920, Oxford has been touted by amateur historians and conspiracy theorists as the true author of the poems and plays of William Shakespeare. It has become a matter of urgency to measure the real Oxford against the myth created by his apologists, and uncritically embraced by television documentaries, by playwrights and by the popular press …” Quoted by the publishers on the back cover from the author’s introduction (omitting the final ‘even by justices of the United States Supreme Court’).

Demonography 101

By Peter Moore
[An extended Critique taken from pages 288-311 of The Lame Storyteller, Poor and Despised – see Publications “WE RECOMMEND” – by kind permission of Verlag Uwe Laugwitz.]

The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: Their Poems and their Contexts

By Stephen May
Reviewer: Tom Veal

Reviews 2003

In Search of Shakespeare

Michael Wood; London, BBC (2003)
Reviewer: Kevin Gilvary – The answers may be correct but the questions are wrong.

Reviews 2001

Shakespeare: A Life

By Park Honan
Reviewer: Richard Malim