"London, 1588. Plague decimates the city, and Holy Catholic Spain threatens to sail its gunboats up the Thames. In the rat-ridden Clink prison languish Puritans and papists who have dared to defy the Protestant queen, Elizabeth, or her bishops. The heads of the queen's boldest enemies rot on the pikes of London Bridge. But four streets away, in the crowded and raucous Rose Theater, a group of men and boys say what they will. They are the players, and the bravest of them is a quiet youth who finds his honest voice on the dirty planks of the stage. He kindles the malice of the great, but with his angel's tongue he evades all punishment. His name is William Shakespeare." "The object of passionate interest and bitter envy, Will is an engima. His amazing gift for words finds him powerful friends and elevates him from poor player to master playwright, yet also earns him the violent wrath of the famous Christopher Marlowe, a baby-faced poetic genius who brooks no rivals. Though Will's wife, Anne, waits impatiently - and not always chastely - for him in the country town of Stratford, he is a stranger to his family. His home is the London theater, where his conflict with Marlowe and, later, his friendship with big, wild Ben Jonson spur them all to make plays so inventive and radical they may set the city on fire. While Will burns with passion for his new theater, the Globe, Anne tries to wake him from his player's dream into the daylight of his life with her. Not until Will's world collapses does she learn the terrible price that must be paid to save him."--BOOK JACKET.