The Lost Manuscript: About Shakespeare's Last And Unknown Play

The Lost Manuscript

William Shakespeare did in fact write one last play before he died, and it wasn't, as many suppose, Cardenio. Amazingly, it is about none other than Christopher Columbus. The story of the momentous discovery of this unknown Shakespeare play at a demolition site in Stratford-on-Avon is told in David Herman's fascinating novel, with striking excerpts from the play itself. The hero of the story, the first man in modern times to hold the original pages of the four-centuries-old play, is Douglas Parsons, a foreman on the demolition site with a solid university background in English Literature and Shakespeare.
The spell-binding novel takes us through the play, seen through Parsons' eyes, and he himself becomes a protagonist in the story as it unfolds. He is tempted to reveal his incredible discovery to the beautiful Professor Anne Cornwall, a world authority on Shakespeare, with whom he falls in love, and he must repeatedly steel himself not to betray Shakespeare's trust and "spill the beans."

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