Shakespeare’s lost manuscript

David Herman’s novel The Lost Manuscript fits neatly into the comparatively new literary category of Young Adult (YA) fiction, although the author says it was written for an adult audience. Developed to soften the transition between children’s novels and adult literature, YA is a category of fiction primarily targeted at adolescents, but approximately half of whose readers are adults.

The modern YA classification originated in the 1960s, after publication of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, the first published fiction marketed for young adults. As publishers began to focus on the emerging adolescent market, booksellers and libraries began creating young adult sections distinct from children’s literature and novels written for adults. 

The first novel in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, published in 1997, attracted a wide adult audience, but many see it as key in the resurgence of young adult literature. Finally the publishers began issuing the Harry Potter books with two different covers – one for adult, and the other for adolescent readers.

The story of William Shakespeare's last play

The Lost Manuscript tells the story of a chance discovery of two buried chests containing between them the manuscript of Shakespeare’s last play, written in his own hand, together with other personal papers. One of these documents urges whoever unearths the manuscript to “find a theatre and troupe that will perform it with justice and skill.” 

The narrator – a Cambridge graduate named Douglas Parsons – comes to consider this a personal communication, and he accepts the obligation to honor Shakespeare’s trust. Woven into the story are a series of coincidences that lead Parsons to believe that some supernatural force is linking him to Shakespeare. 

The play that Parsons discovers is woven around Christopher Columbus’s voyages of discovery in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Something induces Parsons to keep his discovery secret and not to make copies of the manuscript. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with an eminent Shakespearean scholar named Anne (he is struck by the fact that she shares her name with Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife). Her son, by a twist of fate, is named Christopher, just like Columbus. In a final denouement, a mysterious explosion and fire destroy the whole manuscript, except for one sheet of vellum, which Parsons manages to save. 

Searching for some logical explanation for what he has experienced, Parsons speculates: “Perhaps the Bard, watching me across the centuries, had had sudden doubts about the quality of his play and decided that it was not a fit culmination to his immortal life’s opus, and thus in a fit of rage had fed it to the flames.”

The discerning reader could not but concur with the Bard and applaud his action. If there is a flaw in the basic concept of The Lost Manuscript, it is David Herman’s decision to concoct large sections of what we are told is a drama written by William Shakespeare. Time and again, after quoting a section of the supposed play, Herman has Douglas Parsons comment on the glories of what he has just read.

“I was overwhelmed, as I read, by the vivid magic of Shakespeare’s poetic art,” he writes at one point. At another: “Sublime! I was carried away by the glorious music, the crafted flow and artistry of Shakespeare’s verse.” Or again, after a soliloquy by Columbus: “Breathtaking! That’s the only way I can describe my reaction to this soliloquy that so encapsulated the poetic genius of Shakespeare.”

What are these magic Shakespearean lines? Here is an extract from the soliloquy:

Meantime, man of mystery I shall remain,

And with three small ships from Palas sail, 

In the fateful fourteen hundred and ninety-two, 

When the Catholic Kings by royal decree

The poor Jews cast out from their domain, 

And me they also send away from Castile

To find new worlds for the rule of Spain…

Neither here, nor in any of the other extracts provided, is there one line in iambic pentameter – Shakespeare’s invariable medium for writing blank verse. 

How much more convincing Herman’s novel would have been had he used the device of describing, in as glowing terms as he wished, what selected scenes contained, rather than attempting to match Shakespearean verse and producing an unconvincing pastiche. 

One further, though less vital, gripe. For some reason the printers have opted to set all the dialogue in the novel in italics. This break with the traditional practice is an unnecessary distraction for the reader.

Putting these matters aside, Herman packs a great deal into the small book, and The Lost Manuscript will certainly be enjoyed by an adolescent readership – and by many adults as well.  ■

The Lost ManuscriptDavid Hermantitleb.com, 2021 $19.58, 110 pages

Shakespeare’s letter

The Lost Manuscript includes a fictional letter written by William Shakespeare in which he explains why he wrote a new play about Christopher Columbus. Here is an extract:

Before my own departure and burial, I bury this wooden chest and in it the play about Admiral Columbus which future generations may regard as my finest work, or else the feeble final curtain of an aging playwright. If and when you find this play of my late years, read it well and consider that if indeed it represents the peak of my dramatic skill and language, then I pray that you will find a theater and troupe that will perform it with justice and skill, for I have toiled over it these past six years and polished and perfected it lovingly.

Signed William Shakespeare, Playwright