William Shakespeare was a ‘black Jewish woman’, a new book has claimed.
The real playwright is identified as the historical figure Emilia Bassano in The Real Shakespeare, by an LSE graduate and feminist historian.
She was a poet with connections to the Tudor court and wrote the Shakespearean canon of plays using the pen-name ‘Shakespeare’, according to the book.
But her work is said to have been stolen from an uneducated interloper – William Shakespeare – from Stratford-upon-Avon.
The book’s author Irene Coslet argues that the idea of a ‘white’ genius was preferred to Bassano’s identity as a black female playwright.
She was the mistress of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, Elizabeth I’s Lord Chamberlain and patron of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the theatre troupe Shakespeare made famous.
Some writers believe that she may be the inspiration for the ‘Dark Lady’ addressed in Shakespeare’s sonnets.
During Shakespeare’s own lifetime, his authorship was never questioned and he was even hailed as a genius ‘for all time’ by his rival Ben Jonson.
But there have been suggestions that fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe may be among those responsible for Shakespeare’s considerable volume of work.
The playwright’s background as a humble man from Warwickshire with little formal education has further led some to question how he ascended to become a literary genius.
This is addressed in Ms Coslet’s book, where she writes: ‘Historians have not managed to explain how the Stratford man, a semi-illiterate moneylender, managed to gain such a level of erudition.’
In contrast to Shakespeare, Ms Coslet claims that Bassano gained the necessary expertise from her ‘diverse identity’ as a Jew and a Moor – a person of north African origin who also had family ties to Venice.
The author also states that ‘English-speaking world has a mother with a multi-cultural identity’, and that Bassano was the ‘mother of a civilisation’.
While Ms Coslet’s book recognises that Bassano is shown as a light-skinned woman in portraits, it argues that her skin may have been deliberately lightened in line with what were the beauty standards.
The historian told The Telegraph: ‘If Shakespeare was a female of colour, this would draw attention to issues of peace and justice in society.’
‘What if women had a pivotal role and a civilising impact in history, but they have been silenced, belittled and erased from the dominant narrative?’
It is not the first time an author has claimed Shakespeare was a woman.
American author Jodi Picoult also argued that Bassano, the first woman in England to publish a book of original poetry, was the real Bard.
In her book By Any Other Name, which was published in 2024, Ms Picoult claims Shakespeare ‘sold his name to people who wanted to hide themselves as writers’.
The consensus among scholars is that Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564 to a glove-maker.
He attended the local grammar school and at the age of 18 married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway.
Shakespeare, who was mentioned among the London theatre scene by 1592, died in 1616 – almost 30 years before Bassano’s death.
