This is a fascinating book, but I was dismayed by Wilson's anti-Elizabeth bias. He refers to her as a "hideous old woman" responsible for the death of "many worthy young people" like Mary Queen of Scots and the Earl of Essex. Worthy young people...those two? Mary Stuart was singularly lacking in common sense, and, after catching Mary red-handed plotting against her numerous times, Elizabeth had little choice politically but to execute her. As for Essex, he was a spoiled egomaniac who bit the hand that fed him. Wilson also does himself no service by referring to Robert Cecil as "the little secretary Cecil" or by repeating without caveat a discredited story about how Essex's ring was not given to Elizabeth.

Books on Shakespeare roughly seem to fall into two categories: Standard scholarly books that downplay the man and focus on the plays and ingenious, entertianing books by frequently learned amateurs of anti-stratfordian theories of authorship. Anti-stratfordians have an advantage with the popular reading public; whereas academics are content to deal with texts as if they have no referents, laypeople necessarily have to ask (as William Paley said in his "natural theology) what kind of man wrote these plays. Anti-stratfordians are all too willing to oblige.

Furthermore the field is fairly well uncontested as practically all academics consider anti-stratfordian theories as beneath their contempt. This is a shame because generally they are entirely worthy of contempt. Ian Wilson is educated amateur, with the sort of background one associates with anti-stratfordians. He summarizes and interprets the available evidence and comes to some remarkable conclusions.

Best of all, his is not an "anti-anti-stratfordian rant" he concentrates on considering the "stratford man" not knocking other candidates. But the position of there being an "authorship problem" is made untenable. Particularly when read in conjuction with Matus' SHAKESPEARE IN FACT which addresses subsequent assessments of shakespeare (culminating in romantic "bardolatry") as well as a dissection of the claims for Oxford. This even though there are plenty of "arguably"'s, "almost certian"'s, "likely"'s that stud the text which the loyal opposition will make much of.

The one substantian objection is that Wilson argues for the likelihood of a position (for example the identity of the "dark lady") and then frequently treats it as establish fact. This is a chief vice of anti-strafordians A few more qualifiers would have enhanced the book's credibility.

Being a Shakespearean actor, I am very interested in consuming any information concerning the bard from critiques of the plays and sonnets to varied information about his life. Usually though its a chore to ponder through overblown scholarly disertaions on the works that totally ignore the dimension of the presentation and performance. Even more so with dull biographers who grapple with sparse facts on Shakespeare's life and who eventually draw a very incomplete view of the man. That all changed in reading this book! Ian Wilson paints the most complete portrait of the bard that I have ever read. Piecing together bits of direct and surrounding evidence, selections of the plays and political intriques of the time Wilson writes an exciting narrative that reads more like a screenplay then a dissertation. I found myself dieing to know what happend next as his life unfolded. Here Shakespeare appears as a true Human being and not the stuff of half baked legend and places emotion and motivation behind the writing of the plays. It describes in detail his dealings with the high members of the court of England, rising through the ranks of the theatrical world and gives a poignant glimpse into the man himself and dispels any allusion to the authorship question, especially from Edward De Vere. Given the success of "Shakespeare in Love", Hollywood should take this book and fashion a mini-series on his life. There is more than enough drama and mystery in these pages for three films. Definitely a great read for any scholar or Shakespearean actor that seek to relish the rich legacy that Will left to our culture.

Sins are definitely out of fashion. The last time I came across the Seven Deadly Sins of Envy, Pride, Covetousness, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust and Anger, it was in a glossy Singaporean magazine for the trendy crowd. Under each of the headings it featured big cars, expensive condos, the current "IN"-nightspots, the newest restaurants, fashionable jewelry, designer clothes and so on. The word "sin" may have made monks and Victorians tremble; but we just shiver in anticipation of the latest thrill. Alain de Botton captures this change in attitude perfectly in his 5-page afterword: "[Today] our concerns are of a different order. We worry about whether we are cheerful or depressed, fulfilled or low in self-esteem. We worry about happiness, not sin and virtue."

"The Seven Deadly Sins" have originally been published in 1962 by The Sunday Times, and authors from England have written all seven contributions. The book does not rank the sins in any order (rankings are a very American obsession, and it seems the English have not been infected yet in the early sixties). However, it is very fitting for our democratic society to begin with ENVY, Angus Wilson's contribution, and to end the book with ANGER, W. H. Auden's contribution. Envy is the quintessential democratic "sin." Alain de Botton reflects that "envy comes from comparison and [...] the habit for everyone to compare themselves to everyone else is a particularly modern, democratic one." People envy only those who they feel themselves to be like: "There are few successes more unendurable than those of our closest friends [and] it follows that the more people we take to be our equals, the more we will be at risk of dissatisfaction." Which explains why a society of equals does not automatically lead to more happiness for its individual members. Anger is also a very democratic "sin" because anger tends to arise from a sense of entitlement: "We aren't overwhelmed by anger whenever we are denied an object we desire, only when we believe ourselves entitled to obtain it" (Alain de Botton). A sense of entitlement comes with democracy: we are not just in pursuit of happiness, we assume we are entitled to it.

Wedged between the highlights of Wilson's and Auden's articles are contributions by Edith Sitwell on PRIDE (a tongue-in-cheek confession to the "virtue" of pride), Cyril Connolly on COVETOUSNESS (a very funny short story about obsessive greed), Patrick Leigh-Fermor on GLUTTONY (an indigestible, rambling piece of writing - skip this part of the menu!), Evelyn Waugh on SLOTH ("Sloth is the condition in which a man is fully aware of the proper means of his salvation and refuses to take them," the state of rejecting the "spiritual good" which - in modern parlance - leads to depression, the contemporary cousin of sloth), and finally Christopher Sykes on LUST (a fine example of British common sense).

If we worry about happiness, not sin and virtue, why should we read about "The Seven Deadly Sins" at all? Why worry about the "good" when we can go out and have "fun" instead? The answer is: the "good" is about the value we attribute to our lives looking forward and looking back, the "fun" is just living it. In general, we are bad at "just living" or "living in the moment." but experts in reflecting on the past and planning for the future. It is a smart decision to build on our expertise and put some meaning into our lives to make looking back and forward more enjoyable. After all, the good life and the happy life are complementary, not mutually exclusive. Alain de Botton points it out just so well: "If we listen to pre-Christian philosophers, there is never a conflict between happiness and goodness. For Socrates, the sinful man is at the same time the miserable man, the good one the happy one. It's only with the arrival of Christianity that a conflict starts to appear and that, unwittingly, it starts to seem as though being good is dull and not likely to lead one to happiness, while sinfulness is bad, but actually rather fun."