The Letters of Edward de Vere
read by Sir Derek Jacobi

This 2CD set provides the best entry to date into the world of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the sixteenth-century courtier poet whom many believe was the true author of the Shakespeare canon. Here in his own words we can hear for ourselves this writer and poet speaking personally to contemporaries. All but one or two of these letters were written to his in-laws, the Cecils, whose saving nature we have to thank that they survived. Certainly he must have written many letters to friends and other family members that have not survived.

Complementing the familiar voice of Sir Derek as Oxford are those of several other accomplished English actors. Joan Walker’s narration connects the letters with the events of Oxford’s life as they unfold, while letters and poems by his wife Ann Cecil, his lover Ann Vavasor, his rival Sir Walter Raleigh, his tutor Sir Thomas Smith and others are brought to life by five other professional actors. Included as well are two madrigals that suggest Oxford’s style of composition plus examples of his own early poems and song lyrics.

Oxford’s Life

Born into one of the oldest and most prestigious families of the English aristocracy, de Vere was raised by the eminent Greek scholar and government minister Sir Thomas Smith, chiefly at Smith’s home on the Thames near Windsor and Eton. The death in 1562 of his father, the sixteenth Earl, caused the twelve-year-old Earl to be transferred to the care of William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, the Queen’s leading minister of state in his great London mansion. Married at twenty-one to Cecil’s fifteen-year-old daughter Ann, Oxford spent his late teens and twenties at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I, except for a single year, his twenty-sixth, which he spent absorbing the culture of France and Italy.

Following his years of success at Court, by his early thirties he found himself banished for two years from the Queen’s Presence. From this point on he begins to disappear, little by little, from the records, until by the 1590s, he seems almost forgotten. By the early 90s, financial troubles, loss of credit, the death of his wife and old friends –– then by the end of the 90s, the death of the Queen, followed by the ascendance of his enemies at the Court of James I, contribute to his deepening silence. His final disappearance in 1604 has left us with more questions than answers. Unfortunately for us, the rest –– as Hamlet put it –– “is silence.”

What do the letters tell us about him and about the possibility that he wrote the Shakespeare canon? Listen and form your own conclusions.

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