Michael Blanding on North by Shakespeare

(6/7/21) In this new book North by Shakespeare: A Rogue Scholar's Quest for the Truth Behind the Bard's Work, investigative journalist Michael Blanding presents the parallel narratives of renegade scholar Dennis McCarthy, known as “the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community,” and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source of Shakespeare’s work. Plagiarism software has revealed direct links between Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and North’s published and unpublished writings—as well as Shakespearean plotlines seemingly lifted straight from North’s own colorful life. Prepare to have your view of William Shakespeare as a singular genius playwright upended in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.