Intimacies with Marlowe, entanglements in London with the mysterious dark lady, the probable fathering of an illegitimate son - the mysteries of Shakespeare's personal life have proven tantalisingly obscure.

In Shakespeare Revealed, acclaimed authority, René Weis, brings the man and his milieu to the fore in a compelling reassessment. Breaking with tradition, he reveals how the works themselves contain a rich seam of clues about Shakespeare's life, from his heretical dalliances with Catholicism to his grief at the death of his son Hamnet. If there is a code in his writing, Shakespeare always intended it to be broken.

This striking re-reading is consolidated by scrupulous archival research. Through reconstruction of records of the age, René Weis builds a colourful picture of Shakespeare's daily life: the bustling market town of Stratford, the spellbinding forests of Warwickshire, the pell-mell of London's theatres. Above all he reanimates Shakespeare's social scene: Stratford's family affairs and neighbourly disputes and a dangerous London scene, peopled with shady spies, informers and torturers.