The Man Who Stole Shakespeare's Skull
Was the Bard's skull really stolen from its cursed grave?; PLUS London Falling, The New Mafia, The Umbrella Man, John & Paul
I have a new story published today over at Narratively called The Man Who Stole Shakespeare’s Skull. It’s a kind of historical heist tale about the claim that a young surgeon named Frank Chambers stole William Shakespeare’s skull from its apparently cursed resting place at Stratford’s Holy Trinity church back in 1794, and the ongoing scientific investigations aimed at determining whether the claim is true. You can read it here.
“After more digging, one of the men carefully removed a grubby white ovoid-shaped object from the dirt and handed it to Chambers. The surgeon held the bony object aloft in the glimmer of his lantern and compared it to a limestone effigy looking down on them from a funerary monument to the most famous and influential writer in the English language. In a macabre echo of Hamlet, he found himself staring into the hollow eyes of a lost genius. According to an account published a century later, the young surgeon had committed a crime that continues to baffle investigators to this day. Frank Chambers had stolen the skull of William Shakespeare…” Read more.
In the next edition of the newsletter, I’ll tell some thread-pull stories that are related to the skull but couldn’t be squeezed into the story of its theft.◆
Recommended
Some quick recommendations: I just read London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe, about the mysterious death of a London teenager following his involvement in the city’s shady underworld of Russian oligarchs. More than a true crime investigation, it’s a portrait of a capital city hijacked by greed, corruption, and a self-defeating desire for foreign money. It’s typically brilliant - I would read anything by Radden Keefe. Handily, he’s got a new piece in the New Yorker, The Car Crash Conspiracy, which, given how these things work, might become a book in a couple of years.
I’ve also recently read The New Mafia: The Inside Story of the Rise of the ‘Ndrangheta by Sanne De Boer. Originally published in hardback as Mafiopoli, it’s an investigation by a Dutch journalist who moves to Calabria in the boot of Italy and encounters the brutal Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, who are bound by blood ties and ritualistic codes, and have a deadly influence across Europe.
For more on the ‘Ndrangheta, there’s a recommended drama based on true stories called The Good Mothers (available on Disney+ in the UK).
My current read is The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Martin Fitzgerald. Martin used to write a blog, back in the days when the internet was still good, called The JFK Club, and I was delighted to see he’s turned his interest in the JFK assassination into a book. Brilliantly, it’s not really about whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, but instead it’s about the myriad of strange stories and experiences that revolve around that fateful day in Dallas in 1963. It’s a terrific read.
All of these books, by way, have been added to the Singular Discoveries bookshelf on evil old Amazon.
I mentioned last time I was reading John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie. I’ve finished it now, and it really is terrific, certainly one of the best of the many Beatles books I’ve read. It sent me back to listen to songs I thought I knew like the back of my hand with new insight and perspective.
Without wanting to turn this into a Beatles newsletter, I followed up reading John and Paul by watching Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, a documentary about Macca’s post-Beatles life and career (available on Amazon Prime in the UK). It’s a fascinating companion to the book, with lots about the fractured relationship with Lennon as McCartney navigates a difficult artistic period to emerge triumphant.
I also enjoyed McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass, which is a kind of cosy true crime doc about the quest to find Macca’s iconic original 1961 Höfner bass, which was stolen more than 50 years ago (available on BBC iPlayer in the UK). The scenes where (spoiler alert) he’s reunited with the long-lost instrument are lovely.
Finally, I previously mentioned the story of the amateur codebreaker who claimed to have solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac killings. I said at the time I had doubts about the story, and, interesting as it is, I’m now convinced it’s not true. This article on Defector, Michael Connelly Should Stick To Fake Crime by Elon Green, give it a good debunking.◆
More next time. I’m still planning to move my newsletter away from Substack (which just announced that its biggest writer, earning £200,000 per month, is weird manboy, crypto fraudster, pyramid schemer, tax evader, alleged sexual exploiter and human trafficker, and 100% confirmed dickhead Andrew Tate). I’ll make the switch as soon as I get the time to properly work out how to do it. This shouldn’t have any impact on subscribers, and might make the world a very slightly better place. So please do continue to share and subscribe to help sustain this free newsletter. Thanks for reading.
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