It never occurred to me that anyone would undertake to write an entire book devoted to describing and deepening an understanding of my own work, but Peter Rush has done just that with Hidden in Plain Sight: The True History Revealed in Shake-speares Sonnets (from Real Deal Publications – edited by Alex McNeil, with publishing assistance from William Boyle) now available on Amazon.com.
Peter and I met online back in 1999, when I first put up some information about a possible discovery about the 154 sonnets of the 1609 sequence, which was suppressed upon printing and remained underground for more than a century. It took me six years to work my way through the Sonnets according to this new “paradigm” that involved the language, form and content of the sequence; and the results in 2005 became The Monument: “Shake-speares” Sonnets by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.
Having kept in touch since then, Peter Rush began writing his own book – presenting the same description of the Sonnets, but from a different angle and with a new approach. In addition, he includes a running comparison with the commentaries of four “orthodox” editors, who, unhappily, are tied down by the bankrupt Stratfordian mythology; and he shows how they are consistently unable to make sense of the Sonnets, regardless of their expertise as scholars.
In this book you’ll find much new and brilliant work – powerful stuff, making not only an important complement to The Monument but also contributing a ton of original insights. I’ll have more to report on this book as we go along; for now, I must say that Hidden in Plain Sight has reinforced my conviction that The Sonnets will be viewed one day as Oxford’s ultimate masterwork … a “message in a bottle” to preserve the true history for “eyes not yet created” (you and me) in the future.
Oh – once more, here’s the Cast of Characters in the Sonnets; as the author tells us:
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.
(Seat = Throne of England)
Friend or Fair Youth – Southampton
Mistress or Dark Lady – Queen Elizabeth
Author – Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford
And:
Rival Poet – Oxford’s Pen Name “Shakespeare”
“Hidden in Plain Sight is a lucid, penetrating analysis of one of the most difficult-to-understand pieces of literature in the world: Shakespeare’s sonnets. Rush articulately, coherently and believably summarizes the evidence that the Sonnets not only identify the true author of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry but also reveal hitherto unknown, astonishing details of the decline and fall of the Tudor Era.” – Dr. Paul Altrocchi, researcher and author (most recently of Fraught With Hazard, a novel of the Spanish Armada).
The “Friend” or Fair Youth
The “Mistress” or Dark Lady
The Author
Hank Whittemore's Shakespeare Blog 