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The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare: A Tale of Forgery and Folly
In the winter of 1795, a frustrated young writer named William Henry Ireland stood petrified in his father's study as two of England's most esteemed scholars interrogated him about a tattered piece of paper that he claimed to have found in an old trunk. It was a note from William Shakespeare. Or was it?
In the months that followed, Ireland produced a torrent of Shakespearean letters, poetry, drawings—even an original full-length play that would be hailed as the Bard's lost masterpiece and staged at the Drury Lane Theatre. The documents were forensically implausible, but the people who inspected them ached to see first hand what had flowed from Shakespeare's quill. And so they did.
This dramatic and improbable story of Shakespeare's teenaged double takes us to eighteenth century London and brings us face-to-face with history's most audacious forger.
In the months that followed, Ireland produced a torrent of Shakespearean letters, poetry, drawings—even an original full-length play that would be hailed as the Bard's lost masterpiece and staged at the Drury Lane Theatre. The documents were forensically implausible, but the people who inspected them ached to see first hand what had flowed from Shakespeare's quill. And so they did.
This dramatic and improbable story of Shakespeare's teenaged double takes us to eighteenth century London and brings us face-to-face with history's most audacious forger.
229 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 25, 2015
Human credulity, much like human stupidity, is indeed as infinite as Einstein believed, both never seize to amaze and both were instrumental in allowing William Henry Ireland, a 19 year old boy, whose parental neglect and lack of esteem and expectations left him with much to prove, to become the Bard himself for about a year and a half in the late 18th century. While the boy lacked the traditional affection and attention usually (or at least ideally) found at home, it certainly didn't affect his self esteem. What started off as misguided attempts to secure his father's love, became in fact one of the most audacious literary hoaxes in ambition alone. Neither overestimation of his own talent nor fear of legal repercussions prevented young Ireland from creating a series of Shakespeare forgeries from trivial, such a receipts, to monumental, such as an entire play. And the public, for the most part, ate it up and asked for more. At least until it became too blatantly obvious that the quality didn't hold up. This was a terrific account of a grand literary hoax, terrifically succinct and terrifically readable to boot., not to mention a lovely accessible look into the Georgian England and its Shakespeare obsession. A story about a hoax so unbelievable, that it nearly read like one and, of course, like most such stories turned out to be absolutely real. Highly recommended.
April 12, 2022
In the late 18th century, William-Henry Ireland managed to convince a fair number of people that he had discovered a hidden trove of Shakespeare's papers. Starting with a relatively trivial forgery to please his overbearing father, who collected antiquities, Ireland eventually drafted two entire plays allegedly by the Bard. A fascinating story.
September 5, 2015
No, but listen:
In 1795, this nineteen-year-old kid named William-Henry Ireland was going crazy under the thumb of his overbearing, pompous, Shakespeare-obsessed father, said father being way more committed to finding a lost memento of William Shakespeare's than he was in giving his bright but shy son a molecule of credit for anything.
So William-Henry decided to forge William Shakespeare.
By the time this teenager was done, eighteen months later, he'd forged receipts, legal documents, lost love letters, book notes, will and testaments, first-draft manuscripts of King Lear and Hamlet, and even a complete, full-blown "lost play," all belonging to the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. He took in academics, nobility, Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV), and Samuel Johnson's biographer James Boswell. He and his father's home became a shrine for visiting Shakespearean fanboys & fangirls, and his "lost" Shakespeare play, "Vortigern and Rowena," was staged at Drury Lane Theatre.
In doing so, he fooled snooty academic and nobility-obsessed gatekeepers, hit out against the culture's strictures of class, fed into his dreams of being a great writer in his own right, used the 1790s deification of William Shakespeare -- and revealed himself to be more like his father than either would care to admit.
... are you still here?? GO READ THIS BOOK.
In 1795, this nineteen-year-old kid named William-Henry Ireland was going crazy under the thumb of his overbearing, pompous, Shakespeare-obsessed father, said father being way more committed to finding a lost memento of William Shakespeare's than he was in giving his bright but shy son a molecule of credit for anything.
So William-Henry decided to forge William Shakespeare.
By the time this teenager was done, eighteen months later, he'd forged receipts, legal documents, lost love letters, book notes, will and testaments, first-draft manuscripts of King Lear and Hamlet, and even a complete, full-blown "lost play," all belonging to the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. He took in academics, nobility, Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV), and Samuel Johnson's biographer James Boswell. He and his father's home became a shrine for visiting Shakespearean fanboys & fangirls, and his "lost" Shakespeare play, "Vortigern and Rowena," was staged at Drury Lane Theatre.
In doing so, he fooled snooty academic and nobility-obsessed gatekeepers, hit out against the culture's strictures of class, fed into his dreams of being a great writer in his own right, used the 1790s deification of William Shakespeare -- and revealed himself to be more like his father than either would care to admit.
... are you still here?? GO READ THIS BOOK.
August 5, 2025
(Reread.) Poor William-Henry Ireland, son of a wannabe. His father was a pompous, self-aggrandizing social climber who cared only about his image as a man of sophistication and fine tastes; his mother, ostensibly dead, likely was the housekeeper who once had been a mistress to Georgian nobility. Neither adult had much use for him, but he just wanted to be loved. His solution? Give his father what he desired more than anything in the world: something in Shakespeare’s handwriting. That should make the old man happy, right?
So begins this rollicking tale of a put-on gone horribly awry. Ireland’s father, a ne’er-do-well embodiment of Oscar Wilde’s quip that a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, spends equal time extolling Shakespeare and putting down his teenage son. In his little free time outside of that, he collects antiques, essentially assuming that the prestige of their former owners physically would rub off on him. William-Henry can’t do anything about the bardolatry part, but he decides to try to take the heat off of himself by producing a document in Shakespeare’s hand (spoiler: it’s not really). Unsurprisingly, it’s not enough. Driven by his father‘s insatiable thirst for more, William-Henry creates additional original letters, poems (replete with hilariously exaggerated spelling), and even a full-length play, all under the Shakespeare byline. Eminent scholars of the day, wanting to believe, authenticate them all. A luxe anthology is being published. The play is in production. Now what?
Did we mention that at the time, forgery was a hanging offense?
Frankly, I find the Ireland case infinitely more interesting than any discourse about the so-called ‘true’ authorship of Shakespeare. Whereas there is myriad scholarship that attempts to prove that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was simply a grain merchant and sometime actor trying to make himself appear more important than he actually was, this otherwise overlooked story is evidence that the son of a failed weaver wasn’t happy with his station, either; however, we know for sure he wasn’t Shakespeare. As the Beatles might have said (quoting a different author), everybody’s trying to be the Bard.
So begins this rollicking tale of a put-on gone horribly awry. Ireland’s father, a ne’er-do-well embodiment of Oscar Wilde’s quip that a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, spends equal time extolling Shakespeare and putting down his teenage son. In his little free time outside of that, he collects antiques, essentially assuming that the prestige of their former owners physically would rub off on him. William-Henry can’t do anything about the bardolatry part, but he decides to try to take the heat off of himself by producing a document in Shakespeare’s hand (spoiler: it’s not really). Unsurprisingly, it’s not enough. Driven by his father‘s insatiable thirst for more, William-Henry creates additional original letters, poems (replete with hilariously exaggerated spelling), and even a full-length play, all under the Shakespeare byline. Eminent scholars of the day, wanting to believe, authenticate them all. A luxe anthology is being published. The play is in production. Now what?
Did we mention that at the time, forgery was a hanging offense?
Frankly, I find the Ireland case infinitely more interesting than any discourse about the so-called ‘true’ authorship of Shakespeare. Whereas there is myriad scholarship that attempts to prove that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon was simply a grain merchant and sometime actor trying to make himself appear more important than he actually was, this otherwise overlooked story is evidence that the son of a failed weaver wasn’t happy with his station, either; however, we know for sure he wasn’t Shakespeare. As the Beatles might have said (quoting a different author), everybody’s trying to be the Bard.
October 26, 2017
What an interesting read! Had never heard of this folly but it had me asking myself so many questions as I went along!Always, I waited to find out how his amazing forgeries were finally outed. It had me riveted and also I learned so many interesting facts about William Shakespeare. Good book and a quick read
November 30, 2025
Probably a 3.5, if I had the choice. The book is well researched and the story well told. It just felt a little clinical, the author expressed some sympathy for the boy who kinds of falls in over his head, but I think he didn’t like him much and therefore struggled with making the story moving.
October 24, 2022
Not usually my genre, but the author recaps a true historical escapade in a cleverly told narrative-like manner.
March 1, 2015
"The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare: A Tale of Forgery and Folly" is about an eighteenth century young man who is underestimated by his dysfunctional and emotionally abusive family and is unwittingly provided the motive, skill, and means to become a temporarily successful forger of Shakespearean papers.
The author shows that young William-Henry Ireland was a product of the decayed morality of his family and nation. Then, he chose to take the truth fudging, genealogy and history rewriting tendencies of his culture one step further with actual forgery. Even so, young Ireland was not the only one. He lived on the cusp of what would be known as the Age of Forgery.
William-Henry attempted to make his Shakespeare obsessed father proud of him by giving him a piece of Shakespeare's handwriting (that he claimed to have found) but only managed to make his duped and gullible father greedier and a bigger laughingstock than he already was. Samuel Ireland went to the grave believing his son was too stupid to write anything on his own -- never mind be Shakespeare's pen for more than a year. In many ways, Shakespeare was Samuel Ireland's god, and Samuel Ireland's approval was William-Henry Ireland's god. Big mistake. It cost them both dearly.
I learned a lot about Shakespeare, London, the Bardites, and forgery while reading about William-Henry Ireland and his family. My appreciation of Shakespeare isn't any greater, but I do understand what can become of people who want something so badly that they become victims of their own egos.
The author shows that young William-Henry Ireland was a product of the decayed morality of his family and nation. Then, he chose to take the truth fudging, genealogy and history rewriting tendencies of his culture one step further with actual forgery. Even so, young Ireland was not the only one. He lived on the cusp of what would be known as the Age of Forgery.
William-Henry attempted to make his Shakespeare obsessed father proud of him by giving him a piece of Shakespeare's handwriting (that he claimed to have found) but only managed to make his duped and gullible father greedier and a bigger laughingstock than he already was. Samuel Ireland went to the grave believing his son was too stupid to write anything on his own -- never mind be Shakespeare's pen for more than a year. In many ways, Shakespeare was Samuel Ireland's god, and Samuel Ireland's approval was William-Henry Ireland's god. Big mistake. It cost them both dearly.
I learned a lot about Shakespeare, London, the Bardites, and forgery while reading about William-Henry Ireland and his family. My appreciation of Shakespeare isn't any greater, but I do understand what can become of people who want something so badly that they become victims of their own egos.
February 14, 2012
This book was a riot. The story is based on real events that took place in the 1790's in London. William Henry Ireland was only in his late teens when he came up with the idea to forge some "undiscovered" work done by William Shakespeare. Since there were no actual copies of hand written notes by Shakespeare it was impossible to to verify the forgeries by handwriting analysis. The only way to verify that the work was really from the hand of William Shakespeare was to have the "experts" of the day look at the style and content of the forgeries and pass judgement.
Needless to say a number of the "experts" were duped and young Mr Ireland found himself "needing" to "find" more works to satisfy the growing appetites of his father and the other "experts". The more forgeries William Henry Ireland creates the deeper he digs the hole he in which he finds himself.
Of course in the end all of this blows up in the face of William Henry Ireland and the "experts" but not before a comedy of errors has been created and a number of bloated egos have been destroyed.
I did feel a wee bit of compassion for William Henry but not too much. He did make me laugh out loud as he created outrageous explanations as to how he came to get his hands on the documents.
A light read and I did learn a bit about the Bard that I did not know. If you have an interest in Mr Shakespeare I think you will enjoy this book.
Needless to say a number of the "experts" were duped and young Mr Ireland found himself "needing" to "find" more works to satisfy the growing appetites of his father and the other "experts". The more forgeries William Henry Ireland creates the deeper he digs the hole he in which he finds himself.
Of course in the end all of this blows up in the face of William Henry Ireland and the "experts" but not before a comedy of errors has been created and a number of bloated egos have been destroyed.
I did feel a wee bit of compassion for William Henry but not too much. He did make me laugh out loud as he created outrageous explanations as to how he came to get his hands on the documents.
A light read and I did learn a bit about the Bard that I did not know. If you have an interest in Mr Shakespeare I think you will enjoy this book.
November 12, 2010
Absolutely fascinating and interesting. How do you make an unusual detective story interesting? There was no real crime, but lives were disrupted. The author does a good job making what could easily, in the hands of most others, be dull tale. The book is as interesting a tale about the times (about 1795) as it is about the deed itself, with a little bit about Shakespeare and the London theatre thrown in as well. He paints a very different picture about what probably happened than one gets from movies about Shakepeare (particularly Shakespeare in Love). This is a very readable book, and it was hard to put down. I wish he had gone more into the actual mechanics (ink, paper) of the forgery than he did, but it is likely the case that there simply is no source for details, and so anything would be speculation. I wonder if any of the original documents are still extant; the author does not say. So, this is not a technical book, but a simple story about who done it and why he did it.
July 23, 2013
The best trick that Doug Stewart pulls off in this book isn't how well he elaborates upon the details of the "crime", as it were (although he also does this very well). No, the best trick is that he brings all of the players so richly to life that readers can really feel a human connection with them.
William-Henry Ireland, Samuel Ireland, and all the rest were people of their time, but they are painted so vividly here that one feels as if one knows them, as if their lives and concerns and behaviors are not so different from ours, over 200 years later.
The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries and their initial reception as genuine could only have happened at that precise point in time, although many of the concerns they raise reverberate through the ages. This book is so well-researched and well-presented, I would love to see Doug Stewart tackle a more contemporary story, too.
William-Henry Ireland, Samuel Ireland, and all the rest were people of their time, but they are painted so vividly here that one feels as if one knows them, as if their lives and concerns and behaviors are not so different from ours, over 200 years later.
The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries and their initial reception as genuine could only have happened at that precise point in time, although many of the concerns they raise reverberate through the ages. This book is so well-researched and well-presented, I would love to see Doug Stewart tackle a more contemporary story, too.
June 28, 2010
Interesting part of Shakespearean history I was not aware of at all. This is about William-Henry Ireland who forged documents, even an entire play, around 1796 and passed them off as works by Shakespeare. Found it very interesting that ‘classism’ in England at the time effected even this kid's confession (he was 19 at the time he did this). Many felt that he was the dupe for other more learned people who did the actually forgery--believed there was no way he could have done it. Guess that is what many people feel about the "Stratford" Shakespeare to this day—thinking there is no way this undereducated person could have written such material.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2010
Very interesting book about a late 18th-century kid who began forging Shakespeare documents to impress his distant father and ended up first celebrated and then reviled. Stewart's writing is fast-paced and his viewpoint sympathetic towards all the characters, even to those who were so desperate to dupe themselves. A different take on William-Henry Ireland than in any of the recent bios of Shakespeare or nonfic about the forgeries. Quick & entertaining nonfiction fix.
August 22, 2010
Non-Fiction - This was pretty slow and took me awhile to read, especially because I was reading right before bed and would get tired. I at first thought it was a book about Shakespeare as a youth, but it is actually about a boy who forged Shakespeare documents in the 1800's. Something I didn't know. It was interesting and I like occasionally to read something non-fiction.
February 3, 2016
Interesting book about a forger of Shakespeare. It is quite far-fetched, but the author gives a good accounting of the details. For a 21st century reader, the improbability of the forgeries' success boggles the mind.
July 17, 2010
I can't believe this guy got away with as much as he did (he passed off not just one but two, plays as being the work of Shakespeare) before someone called him on it!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
September 12, 2011Got halfway through and I've got to return it. May check it out again. I want to finish as it is an intriguing story.
March 27, 2011
I had to start this book twice. What a great story about how a young guy who not only forged but to the length he took his forgeries.. Hopefully, no one falls for anything so extreme today.
November 18, 2012
Interesting look at the Shakespearean mania in 18th Century England.
March 23, 2013
People believe what they want to believe: How else could a teenage boy have fooled so many "authorities" with the "newly discovered" works of Shakespeare he himself had just created? True story!
March 7, 2013
Read this for book club...very interesting glimpse into 17th century "fandom" associated with Shakespeare.
August 4, 2013
More from the vault of Shakespeareana I read as research for my own work, but this was an engaging and well crafted tale, meticulously researched.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews