“The rendering of my thoughts, emotions and
experiences is part comedy and part tragedy as well as history, for
life is such a mingling. And so, I write this report of the woman
born Anne Rosaline Whateley, she who both detested and adored a man
named William Shakespeare.”
Now comes the tale of the great bard of Avon, wonderfully
humanized and told from a woman’s viewpoint. Anne Whateley,
William Shakespeare’s first --- and secret --- wife, pens her
story in five acts. More than a love story, it is a romantic
chronicling of the writer’s career, his greatest love and his
forced, loveless marriage.
As youths in Stratford-Upon-Avon, Anne Whateley and Will
Shakespeare were great friends. She had a talent with words such
that she could inspire the poet even when he was a mere lad. The
two sparred with each other by dueling with couplets, striving to
outdo the other with their cleverness. They spent many happy days
romping around the English countryside as children. Intrigued in
the way of carefree young people, they slaked their curiosity by
experiencing their world to the fullest.
But as they grew, so did their desires, and they found
themselves almost unwittingly becoming lovers. Driven not by lust
but by something much larger, they forever hungered for each other,
feeling wretched in the times they were apart. Some people are
simply meant for each other, and so it was with Anne Whateley and
Will Shakespeare. But their happiness was not to be so simple, for
another Stratford girl, Anne Hathaway, laid claim to Will as the
father of her child. There was nothing to be done but for Will to
marry her.
Heartbroken, Anne Whateley moved from Stratford to London, where
she could try to mend her emotions. Her beloved Shakespeare would
remain in Stratford with his new family, giv