Graham Holderness is Research Professor in English at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published extensively in early modern and modern literature, and drama. His influential publications include Shakespeare's History (1985), The Shakespeare Myth (1988), the trilogy Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth (2001), Visual Shakespeare: Essays in Film and Television (2002) and Textual Shakespeare: Writing and the Word (2003), the innovative biography Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (2011) and the novel The Prince of Denmark (2001). He is also a dramatist and poet, and his poetry collection Craeft received a Poetry Book Society award in 2002.

'Graham Holderness, who was given Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare as a child, here returns the compliment by writing tales for grown ups - and again shows that he is one of the few academics who can combine scholarship with creativity, criticism with fantasy, historical awareness with commitment to present-day issues. Anyone who thought that there was nothing further to say about the authenticity of the account of shipboard performances of two Shakespeare plays off the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607, or the likelihood of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson collaborating on the King James Bible, will be surprised at what Holderness does with the two controversies.' Lois Potter, University of Delaware

• Introduction: from appropriation to collision; Part I: 1. The voyage of the Red Dragon; 2. 'Shooting an elephant'; Part II: 3. Shakespeare and the King James Bible; 4. 'Wholly Writ': a play in two acts; Part III: 5. The Coriolanus myth; 6. 'The lonely dragon'; Part IV: 7. Shakespeare and 9/11; 8. 'Rudely interrupted'; Afterword: 'Tales from Shakespeare'.

Graham Holderness is Research Professor in English at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published extensively in early modern and modern literature, and drama. His influential publications include Shakespeare's History (1985), The Shakespeare Myth (1988), the trilogy Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth (2001), Visual Shakespeare: Essays in Film and Television (2002) and Textual Shakespeare: Writing and the Word (2003), the innovative biography Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (2011) and the novel The Prince of Denmark (2001). He is also a dramatist and poet, and his poetry collection Craeft received a Poetry Book Society award in 2002.

'Graham Holderness, who was given Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare as a child, here returns the compliment by writing tales for grown ups - and again shows that he is one of the few academics who can combine scholarship with creativity, criticism with fantasy, historical awareness with commitment to present-day issues. Anyone who thought that there was nothing further to say about the authenticity of the account of shipboard performances of two Shakespeare plays off the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607, or the likelihood of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson collaborating on the King James Bible, will be surprised at what Holderness does with the two controversies.' Lois Potter, University of Delaware

• Introduction: from appropriation to collision; Part I: 1. The voyage of the Red Dragon; 2. 'Shooting an elephant'; Part II: 3. Shakespeare and the King James Bible; 4. 'Wholly Writ': a play in two acts; Part III: 5. The Coriolanus myth; 6. 'The lonely dragon'; Part IV: 7. Shakespeare and 9/11; 8. 'Rudely interrupted'; Afterword: 'Tales from Shakespeare'.

Graham Holderness is Research Professor in English at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published extensively in early modern and modern literature, and drama. His influential publications include Shakespeare's History (1985), The Shakespeare Myth (1988), the trilogy Cultural Shakespeare: Essays in the Shakespeare Myth (2001), Visual Shakespeare: Essays in Film and Television (2002) and Textual Shakespeare: Writing and the Word (2003), the innovative biography Nine Lives of William Shakespeare (2011) and the novel The Prince of Denmark (2001). He is also a dramatist and poet, and his poetry collection Craeft received a Poetry Book Society award in 2002.

'Graham Holderness, who was given Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare as a child, here returns the compliment by writing tales for grown ups - and again shows that he is one of the few academics who can combine scholarship with creativity, criticism with fantasy, historical awareness with commitment to present-day issues. Anyone who thought that there was nothing further to say about the authenticity of the account of shipboard performances of two Shakespeare plays off the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607, or the likelihood of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson collaborating on the King James Bible, will be surprised at what Holderness does with the two controversies.' Lois Potter, University of Delaware

• Introduction: from appropriation to collision; Part I: 1. The voyage of the Red Dragon; 2. 'Shooting an elephant'; Part II: 3. Shakespeare and the King James Bible; 4. 'Wholly Writ': a play in two acts; Part III: 5. The Coriolanus myth; 6. 'The lonely dragon'; Part IV: 7. Shakespeare and 9/11; 8. 'Rudely interrupted'; Afterword: 'Tales from Shakespeare'.