About this series

Shakespeare & The Dragon is the first in a series of historical fiction novels. I have a clear vision for a story that will cover the entirety of Shakespeare's life.

As you read this series, you will learn who the true William Shakespeare is. Until now, he has been a mystery, even to scholars.

The key to understanding him is to know that he was a man of deeply held faith. He was neither Catholic nor Protestant. He was catholic—with a small "c”—a word which means “universal.”

This is one of the most important reasons why he named his theatre The Globe.

He wrote plays and poems for all people—regardless of faith or ethnicity or background.

For example, one of his greatest heroes is General Othello—a black Moor who converted to Christianity. He is the one man who can save Venice from invasion. He is betrayed and brought to ruin by a white Christian. The entire play is an examination of good and evil people, without advocating for any particular religious tradition or faith.

As you read this series, you will learn that Shakespeare’s friends and mentors were Christians, Jews and Muslims. Some were black. Many were women. He was inspired by books written by Ancient Greeks, Romans, Sufis, Persians, and others. He read books, especially wisdom literature, from all over the world.

I have spent the last 20 years reading these works, in search of the wisdom that Shakespeare found. If you are wondering if I am advocating for any particular faith, or proselytizing—please believe me when I say that I am doing my very best to be as catholic as he was.

There is more to Shakespeare’s story than just his own personal experiences. These novels will explore many of the other important people of the time.

He lived during one of the most important periods in the history of England and indeed the entire world.

This series of novels will include the well-known historical events--the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish Armada, the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession of King James, the Essex Rebellion, the Gunpowder Plot, and much more.

This series will also include some of the lesser-known events.

In these novels, Shakespeare was not just a witness to this history.

He has a very prominent leading role.

You might ask "What do you mean by solve?"

I have discovered the meaning behind every single individual play, the poems and the Sonnets. There are in fact several layers of meaning to each of them. Everything Shakespeare wrote was incredibly allegorical. There is a veil that hides his true meaning. I am very excited to show you what is behind this veil, and why he had to write with a veil in the first place.

There is also a reason why Shakespeare chose to write each of these plays. There was nothing random about it. The plays are also not just individual stories. They are a unified whole. There are many connections between plays that have not been explored.

I have also discovered the meaning behind almost every single character name. The names Hamlet, Juliet, Falstaff, Lear, Ophelia, Cymbeline, Desdemona, and many others all have a certain meaning. Shakespeare chose each name with great care.

I also have discovered a biographical narrative for Shakespeare's life that is profoundly new. It is nothing like the story we have been told.

You might ask "How is it possible to solve Shakespeare?"

The short answer is that it took 20 years of research--reading dozens of books about him, about the period, and about most of the historical figures in his lifetime.

Also, over those 20 years, the internet changed a lot. It really matured. It became much easier to find pieces of this puzzle.

I watched his plays repeatedly on DVD and streaming, and saw dozens of live performances. For example, I saw King Lear on stage four times in a single year.

The longer answer is in the About Me section of this website. Many events and people across many years of my life uniquely prepared me to solve his works and life. You might say that solving Shakespeare was a fifty year process.

You might ask "Is there really anything new about Shakespeare that we do not already know?"

My simple answer is yes, absolutely yes. There is so much that I have discovered about him, it will take a whole series of historical novels to reveal it all.

Even the scholars who praise Shakespeare the most, and who have the greatest insights into his life and work, simply do not fully understand who he was and why he still is so important. They do not comprehend what he means to us right now, today. They would have you think that Shakespeare is in the faraway past.

Ben Jonson wrote that Shakespeare was the "Soul of the Age"--meaning the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Scholars today do not fully appreciate that Shakespeare is the soul of our age, too. He is very much present in our world today. His influence on you and me is far more powerful than you know.

Please believe me when I tell you that everything he did, he did it for you and me.

Perhaps the most popular depiction of William Shakespeare is from the movie Shakespeare In Love. While it seems innocent enough, the movie is actually an insult to his memory.

The screenwriter, Marc Norman, once said: "Shakespeare was a professional writer, and as soon as I saw that he was a professional writer, I knew he was broke, he was horny, and he was starved for an idea."

Norman clearly projected his own weaknesses on Shakespeare.

The movie portrays Shakespeare as a horny man and unfaithful husband. Perhaps we should not be surprised that the movie was produced by Harvey Weinstein.

Sadly, many people do not even believe that Shakespeare is real. Many people believe that other people wrote his plays. Some people even believe that he was a bad man--a racist or a misogynist.

I am very pleased to tell you that William Shakespeare was a real person. He was an uncommonly good and honorable and brave man. He wrote all of his plays. But he did have collaborators--some of whom will surprise you.

I am eager to introduce you to this William Shakespeare--a man you have never known before.

He is far more extraordinary an artist than we have been led to believe. He is an even greater man than we have been told. The works he wrote, the plays he performed, and the life he lived are far more significant than we have ever imagined.

There is far more to the story of Shakespeare than we have known, or have been told. He was not just a playwright and poet. He was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a glove-maker--and something much more.

The story I am writing begins when he is 22 years old. He is already married with three young children. He is one of 11 people living together in a house--the same house in which he was born.

He does not know where his life is going, and he has no idea how his whole life will soon change. Even in his wildest dreams he has no idea what will happen to him, or the discoveries that he himself will make in his own lifetime. He has no idea that his plays will turn his world upside down, and change the course of history.

Before he became famous, he had a rather eventful life. His character is almost fully formed, before he ever went to London. As you will see, the boy and the young man he was in Stratford-Upon-Avon had everything to do with the man he was going become in London.

He was an Englishman, and his love for England and her history was profound. But to understand Shakespeare we must also understand the history of England, and its place in the world.

His love for the history of the world, and the myriad cultures and peoples and languages, was deep and very sincere. He loved learning and teaching. In his lifetime, history and books were under attack. Truth itself was in jeopardy. School and university education was not available to many people.

He lived in one of the most important and tumultuous periods in the history of the entire world--during a religious and political revolution. What were his religious and political beliefs? I explore them in detail.

Shakespeare was not a mere bystander to the historical period in which he lived. He came from humble origins. He was not "born great"--but he suddenly achieved greatness, and greatness was thrust upon him. At a very young age, he found himself at the very center of the incredible history that was being made.

William Shakespeare had a far more significant role than we have been told.

But his story can not be told without the story of many other important people--including Queen Elizabeth, King James, the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Leicester, Sir Francis Drake, King Philip II of Spain, and many more.

Their stories are integral to his story. Therefore, it is important to understand all of these other people in order to understand who Shakespeare was.

It might surprise you to learn that many of these other people are represented in his plays. He wrote about them in the characters he created. He also frequently wrote about himself in his own plays. Many characters are him, and they speak on his behalf. He even represents himself in one of his female characters!

Most every biographical book about Shakespeare does not explore his relationship with Queen Elizabeth or Essex, or others.

Likewise--most every biography about Queen Elizabeth, or Essex, or others, does not say much about Shakespeare.

This series of novels is an attempt to give you many biographies of many people--with Shakespeare firmly at the center.

I hope to give you a complete story about all of the important, the famous and even the infamous people who lived in the same England and in the same London in which Shakespeare lived, all at the same time.

I hope as you read this series of novels, that you begin to understand why the reign of Queen Elizabeth is known as The Golden Age. And I hope that you begin to see why.

As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. As soon as you begin to read this novel, I am very confident that you will begin to see that the true story about Shakespeare is finally being told.

You might ask "Why is this a novel, and not a book of scholarly research?"

I truly believe that the best way for you to fully understand the truth about William Shakespeare's life and works is for you to go back in time and walk in his shoes.

The more time you spend reading his story--and time-traveling back to the 1580s--the more you will begin to appreciate how astonishing his story truly is.

Like Shakespeare, I am a storyteller by nature. I also do like to teach. But I prefer to teach by telling stories.

He wrote his plays for everyone--female and male, young and old. He told stories to teach and to inspire you, no matter who you are. In fact, his largest fan base during his own lifetime was teenage boys, the apprentices in London. Most all of his plays were written for them, and for the young women in London--and the young women and men in the royal court.

Shakespeare was scholarly, but he did not write for the scholars of the day. He did not write Hamlet for people in his day who were like Polonius or Claudius. He wrote it for the young Ophelias and Hamlets of his day--and for the young women and men in our age, too.

You might ask--"What does Shakespeare's faith have to do with anything?"

The simple answer--everything.

The biggest thing missing from the many books I have read about Shakespeare is a clear-eyed understanding of his faith.

Shakespearean scholars write about whether Shakespeare was a Protestant or a Catholic. Shakespeare was living only a few decades after the Protestant Reformation began. It was one of the most significant events in human history. But these scholars do not understand how deeply his faith inspired and motivated him.

Nowadays we are not accustomed to people who lead the kind of spiritual life that Shakespeare led.

The great composer and musician Johannes Sebastian Bach led such a life. On each page of his musical compositions he wrote the words Soli Deo Gloria--Latin for "Glory to God Alone."

Bach wrote for God and God alone.

That is why his music is so incredibly good—and timeless.

When you listen to Bach's mind-blowingly intense and beautiful Chaconne, you are hearing the music written by a man inspired by God whose sole purpose was to write for God's glory.

Joshua Bell praised the Chaconne as "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect."

When you listen to Shakespeare's words, I encourage you to listen to the music in the dialogue, in the speeches, especially the soliloquies. If you listen closely you will hear another great man writing great spiritually powerful words inspired by God, in order to write for God's glory.

Shakespeare did not write the words Soli Deo Gloria on each page of his plays. But he might as well have.