READ CHAPTER ONE — SHAKESPEARE: THE ENIGMA
Of all the famous individuals in modern history, William Shakespeare is by far the most puzzling and enigmatic; every avenue of research into his life as a writer ends in mystery of one sort or another.

Since the mid-nineteenth century more than fifty alternative authors have been suggested, including Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Oxford - but none has proven truly credible... until now!

Breaking the Shakespeare Codes is the most sensational book ever written on the subject - an astonishing investigation based on secret encoded messages which were left by the real author, and more than thirty contemporaries, in texts alluding to 'Shakespeare' and his work.

It is a well-established fact that cryptography was widely used in the volatile world of Elizabethan England - an age of gossips and rumourmongers, when spying was prevalent and religious turmoil threatened to tear the country and monarchy asunder. Indeed, the true author of Shakespeare was himself the most profound and dangerous secret of all... the unacknowleged, illegitimate son of Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.

This ground-breaking revelation is not made lightly, Robert Nield has spent more than six years in painstaking and meticulous research - there is no comparison with the 'Da Vinci Code'.
      
By uncovering a special anagram code, in which the key word is the author's real name, Robert Nield shows that the true author was a highly mysterious individual - airbrushed out of recorded history because of who he was, forced to live in hiding and, exactly as he foretold in the sonnets, consigned upon his death to oblivion.

Nevertheless, the author left posterity with his most famous creation: an enigmatic reflection of himself as Hamlet - prince of Denmark, son of the queen but a man fated never to become king.

Beyond the codes themselves a host of other clues have been found which have remained unnoticed for centuries. As Robert Nield explains, 'William Shakspere' of Stratford was simply the man who sold the works, a hired underling, who was well-paid as a very necessary mask for the hidden genius.
    
Written with the general reader in mind, 'Breaking the Shakespeare Codes' presents a wealth of fascinating new material - a highly original work which, due to its content and structure, is unlike anything previously published about the Bard.