Few books have managed to disappoint me as much as this one has. The captivating premise of History Play—that Marlowe faked his death and wrote all the plays attributed to Shakespeare—belies its overly-pedantic treatment of Marlovian theory (an actual literary theory supported by several leading Elizabethan scholars).
The most interesting part of the book is its foreword, which wasn't even written by Bolt, but instead by Mark Twain! It lists the facts we know…