Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ghostwriter: Shakespeare, Literary Landmines, and an Eccentric Patron's Royal Obsession

Ghostwriter: Shakespeare, Literary Landmines, and an Eccentric Patron's Royal Obsession

Wells, Lawrence

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralLiterary CriticismRegional: South

Publisher Price: $28.00

ISBN10: 1496852435
ISBN13: 9781496852434
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: Jul 10 2024
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.87
Height: 0.87 Width: 5.87 Depth: 8.70
Language: English
2025 Silver Book Award Winner in the category of Humor/Satire awarded by Bestsellersworld.com

2025 Bronze Book Award Winner in the category of Biography/Memoir awarded by Bestsellersworld.com

Nominee for the 2025 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Life Writing

Part literary mystery, part an examination of what constitutes fiction versus reality, Ghostwriter is based on the true story of author Lawrence Wells, then 45, hired by the University of Mississippi in 1987 to ghostwrite a novel for a wealthy, eccentric donor (Mrs. F, then 75), who was convinced that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was William Shakespeare. Believing herself to be the reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth I, Mrs. F treated ghostwriter Wells as a captive Edward de Vere.

Their roller-coaster literary collaboration dramatized Elizabeth and de Vere's romance, which according to legend produced a son (Henry Wriothesley) born in secret. Henry grew up to become the 3rd Earl of Southampton, who is universally acknowledged as The Fair Youth of Shakespeare's sonnets and whose real-life descendants include Princess Diana and her sons, Prince Harry and William, Prince of Wales.

Wells and his late wife, Dean Faulkner Wells, niece of William Faulkner, traveled to England to research the life of Edward de Vere and interview proponents of the Shakespeare authorship debate. That summer, London tabloids headlined the royal breakup of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, incidentally echoing Wells and Mrs. F's tempestuous love story about Edward de Vere and Queen Elizabeth I.

Flashbacks weave several elements together--the seventeenth-century mystery of Queen Elizabeth's royal bastard, Wells's evolving relationship with his eccentric patron, his search for the real Shakespeare, and the bawdy Elizabethan narrative he composed for his benefactor. The stories merge, leading to a surprising conclusion.

Also from

Wells, Lawrence

View All

Also in

Biographies General

View All