Marlowe Up Close reveals a treasury of steganographic messages created by the Bard himself, recovered by Roberta Ballantine from the earliest texts of Christopher Marlowe—his by-line works and his many ghosted works, never before made public. This style of steganography, in which Marlowe, a secret agent, was trained, he has made into an artistic medium, a spin-off from  the scrappy “dead drops” secret-service agents sent home augmenting their formal dispatches. Anagrammatic dead-drops were used in a pinch in World War II, and even today undercover workers in government positions are taught modern steganography.

At first glance the decipherments here--inner writings on the right side of the page matched with their plaintexts on the left, look opaque. But the sentences in bold type on the right sides are filled with stories, touchingly candid remembrances and essays. A farcical short-story about Shakespeare in a swamp is set inside a remake of  The Jew of Malta: the greatest  erotic writing in early modern English moves within Loves Labour’s Lost: agonized thoughts about his natural father’s destruction appear inside The Comedy of Errors and other works. Furious, defiant comments on his own banishment are set forth as a letter to his spymaster in The Taming of the Shrew. A narration of a desperate, successful jail break Marlowe created for fifteen political prisoners in Constantinople is part of innner Henry VI Part III: a travelogue to end them all (Padua to Seville), rambles inside As You Like It: jewel-like love-letters lie hidden in Twelfth Night: a critique (that answers questions) has been ciphered into The Merchant of Venice. Notes everywhere touch the man’s own life and work, friends and lovers, two wives and several children, political secret manoeuvers, a daring sail to Bermuda, his inspired plan for the biggest-ever politico-theatrical sting—it actually came to pass—and last of all a farewell, created shortly before his death, offering love and advice to his family.

No doubt this book will be attacked, but its more than four hundred corroborative bibliographic notes are intriguing, and just possibly the work could begin a paradigm-shift, sending hungry scholars on journeys along new avenues to explore changing vistas of de Vere’s and Bacon’s activities and Shakespeare-Marlowe research in toto. The index is a welcome aid.           

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                        EVENT: APRIL 5, 2003

Marlowe Revealed, Shakespeare Exposed

Roberta Light Ballantine will discuss “Marlowe Revealed, Shakespeare Exposed” on Friday April 5 at the Selby Library, downtown Sarasota, from 2 to 3:30pm.  The talk will focus on Ballantine’s research on the inner messages of Christopher Marlowe that reveal the true authorship of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare.  A question and answer roundtable will follow the presentation.

In 1996, following 15 years of research, author Ballantine discovered a method in Marlowe’s writings using the basic form of anagram.  She found that Marlowe, in a hidden anagram, began each play and poem by putting in some form of his name in the first two lines and then continued, two lines by two lines with linked anagrams that told of current events or recollections.  Working from the earliest and most original copies she began to decipher numerous works, plays and sonnets by Marlowe and Shakespeare, some confirmed research findings and others exposed new revelations. 

Thousands of deciphered lines—from first lines through to formal signature endings—tell an inside tale of Elizabethan intrigue with historical, political and religious references woven into the autobiographical memoirs of one man—Christopher Marlowe.  Ballantine’s work is an effort to bring a greater understanding to the man and the depth of his influence on history, along with answers to many of the questions surrounding the two Englishmen.

For more information about “Marlowe Revealed; Shakespeare Exposed” contact the Selby Library at 316-1181.

Summary                                                                                                                    

Lecture:   Marlowe Revealed; Shakespeare Exposed

Focus:      Discussion on the inner messages of Christopher Marlowe that reveal the

                 true authorship of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare.

Speaker:   Roberta Light Ballantine, author

When:      Friday, April 5^th

                 2:00-3:30pm

Where:     Selby Library, conference room, 1331 First Street, Sarasota, FL,

                 316-1181