The Late Mr Shakespeare

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

I In which Pickleherring takes his pen to tell of his first meeting with Mr Shakespeare

II In which Pickleherring makes strides in a pair of lugged boots

III Pickleherring's Acknowledgements

IV About John Shakespeare and the miller's daughter

V How to spell Shakespeare and what a whittawer is

VI About the begetting of William Shakespeare

VII All the facts about Mr Shakespeare

VIII Which is mostly about choughs but has no choughs in it

IX About the birth of Mr WS

X What if Bretchgirdle was Shakespeare's father?

XI About this book

XII Of WS: his first word, & the otters

XIII Was John Shakespeare John Falstaff?

XIV How Shakespeare's mother played with him

XV What this book is doing

XVI Shakespeare breeches

XVII Pickleherring's room (in which he is writing this book)

XVIII The Man in the Moon, or Pickleherring in praise of country history

XIX Positively the last word about whittawers

XX What if Queen Elizabeth was Shakespeare's mother?

XXI The Shakespeare Arms

XXII Pickleherring's Song

XXIII About the childhood ailments of William Shakespeare

XXIV About the great plague that was late in London

XXV Bretchgirdle's cat

XXVI Of the games of William Shakespeare when he was young

XXVII The midwife Gertrude's tale

XXVIII Of little WS and the cauldron of inspiration & science

XXIX Some tales that William Shakespeare told his mother

XXX What Shakespeare learnt at Stratford Grammar School

XXXI About Pompey Bum + Pickleherring's Shakespeare Test

XXXII Did Shakespeare go to school at Polesworth?

XXXIII Why John Shakespeare liked to be called Jack

XXXIV What Shakespeare saw when he looked under Clopton Bridge

XXXV About water

XXXVI Of weeds and the original Ophelia

XXXVII The revels at Kenilworth 9th July, 1575

XXXVIII More about Jenkins

XXXIX John Shakespeare when sober

XL Jack Naps of Greece: his story

XLI Jack Naps of Greece: his story concluded

XLII Flute

XLIII The speech that Shakespeare made when he killed a calf

XLIV In which there is a death, and a birth, and an earthquake

XLV Pickleherring's peep-hole

XLVI About silk stockings

XLVII How Shakespeare went to teach in Lancashire

XLVIII How Shakespeare went to sea with Francis Drake

XLIX How Shakespeare went to work in a lawyer's office

L How Shakespeare went to the wars & sailed the seas (again?) & took a long walk in the Forest of Arden & captured a castle

LI Pickleherring's confession

LII In which Anne Hathaway

LIII Shakespeare's other Anne

LIV Pickleherring's nine muses

LV In which John Shakespeare plays Shylock

LVI In which Lucy is lousy

LVII Shakespeare's Canopy, or Pickleherring in dispraise of wine

LVIII Pickleherring's Poetics (some more about this book)

LIX What Shakespeare did when first he came to London

LX In which Pickleherring eats an egg in honour of Mr Shakespeare

LXI In which Pickleherring speculates concerning the meaning of eggs

LXII About Mr Richard Field: another ruminating gentleman

LXIII About a great reckoning in a little room

LXIV More

LXV A look at William Shakespeare

LXVI Pickleherring's list of the world's lost plays

LXVII Love's Labour's Won

LXVIII Was Shakespeare raped?

LXLX All about Rizley

LXX A Private Observation

LXXI In which Pickleherring presents a lost sonnet by William Shakespeare

LXXII Who was Shakespeare's Friend?

LXXIII The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 1

LXXIV The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 2

LXXV The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 3

LXXVI The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 4

LXXVII The Dark Lady of the Sonnets 5

LXXVIII Of eggs and Richard Burbage

LXXIX A few more facts and fictions about William Shakespeare

LXXX In which boys will be girls

LXXXI In which Mr Shakespeare is mocked by his fellows

LXXXII Pickleherring's poem

LXXXIII In which Mr Shakespeare plays a game at tennis

LXXXIV What Shakespeare got from Florio + a word about George Peele

LXXXV Deaths, etc.

LXXXVI 'Mrs Lines and Mr Barkworth'

LXXXVII Shakespeare in Scotland & other witchcrafts

LXXXVIII About Comfort Ballantine

LXXXIX In which Pickleherring plays Cleopatra at the house in St John Street

XC Tom o' Bedlam's Song

XCI In which William Shakespeare returns to Stratford

XCII Bottoms

XCIII Some sayings of William Shakespeare

XCIV A word about John Spencer Stockfish

XCV Pickleherring's list of things despaired of

XCVI Shakespeare's Will (with notes by Pickleherring)

XCVII Fire

XCVIII The day Shakespeare died (with his last words, etc.)

XCIX About the funeral of William Shakespeare & certain events thereafter

C In which Pickleherring lays down his pen after telling of the curse on Shakespeare's grave

Postscript

About the Author

By Robert Nye

Copyright