The Shakespeare Code

Excerpt: Preface

"It is impossible," one critic has noted, "to write an uninteresting book about Shakespeare." Certainly a broad statement considering the reams of print published about that famous genius in the past four centuries, and yet it is not entirely without logic.

Although the name William Shakespeare tops the list as one of the most influential writers of the Western world, readers have sensed an indefinable aura of mystery surrounding the great dramas. Something seems to be missing, and indeed it is.

Only half the story has been told. The half that is omitted is filled with more drama, intrigue, codes, false identity, tragedy, betrayal and mystery than any popular fiction author would dare dream up. It was this distinct element of mystery that first caught my interest.

When I learned that there was doubt about the authenticity of the tale told by orthodox sources-not from any ill will on their part but from a conspiracy of silence on the part of the playwright-I was hooked. A baffling enigma seems to have been carefully hidden behind the screen of these incredibly brilliant plays.

Next I learned that some researchers believed that Francis Bacon was the real author. That was all the inspiration I needed. Unaware of the complexity of the story I was about to encounter, I was off with the enthusiasm of a novice on an eager search for clues to these enigmas-enigmas that appear to have surrounded the whole question of authorship from the beginning.

Could the plays really have been the work of the famous British philosopher-statesman-author known as Francis Bacon? I was soon to be, and am still these many years later, in constant amazement at what I learned.

The influence and reflection on our modern world of the life of this remarkable man is little known or understood by the mainstream historian. Much of what is taught about him is either in error or misinterpreted. Neither the exact time nor the circumstances of his birth are known, nor is the true identity of his parents.

His life is a puzzle, his death a mystery. A mere fraction of his real contribution to the world has been revealed.

This twenty-first century promises to be a time of many disclosures; it is the time when the full details of the "Shakespeare controversy" may finally be resolved. "Thou stand'st as if some mystery thou didst?" wrote Bacon's friend Ben Jonson. Only a handful of serious "detectives" have cared to pierce to the heart of the enigma.

The first step of my research was a visit to the Francis Bacon Library in Claremont, California, where a fine collection of Bacon-related books endowed by philanthropist Walter Arensberg had been preserved. Arensberg, staunch and enthusiastic, was a great Bacon admirer during the early twentieth century. (The attractive little library has now been closed and the collection taken over by the prestigious Huntington Library in San Marino.)

I asked the then director, Elizabeth Wrigley, to recommend one single book that would give the true history of Francis Bacon. "There is no such thing," she answered, "you will have to be the one to write it."

Since that time I have visited dozens of fine university and public libraries; I have prowled through new and used bookstores and interviewed many people through letters and personal contacts. I have acquired a collection of Baconian books and have kept in close touch with the Francis Bacon Society in London.

This scholarly group was formed in the nineteenth century to explore the real facts of the Bacon-Shakespeare story. They are devoted seekers after the truth and have revealed many fascinating facts about the Elizabethan aristocrat, but even they have not reached a final conclusion about him. The one fact they do agree on is that Bacon was the true author of the works of Shakespeare.

Early in my research, that strange phenomenon which Carl Jung called synchronicity brought me in touch with the single most amazing Baconian artifact I could have imagined. Most readers are familiar with such surprising events. Suddenly out of nowhere, just at the right time and the right place, some essential object or information will appear, as though a genie had been at work behind the scenes.

For me this surprise came in the shape of a strange wooden contraption known as a cipher wheel. On the printed pages affixed to it, in a most ingenious code is recorded the true story of Francis Bacon-an account actually and incredibly written by him in his own words.

It is a story that changes the current concept of English history. No longer was guesswork necessary. Now the task was to fit the details of Bacon's life, as the cipher gives it, into accepted records of history.

The Shakespeare Code is my attempt to do just that and to explain what the cipher wheel is and why Bacon felt the need to create the ciphers. It is a poignant and tragic tale-but one that ends on an unexpected note of triumph.

It is a story that is crying out to be told.