Shakespeare's Beehive

Pete McCabe in conversation with rare book collectors and authors George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler whose book Shakepeare's Beehive: An Annotated Elizabethan Dictionary Comes to Light (Axletree Books, 2015) analyzes a 1580 copy of Baret's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary and concludes that it was the great playwright's personal copy and had profound influence on his writing. A Web site that complements the book is running at shakespearesbeehive.com.

The trio delve deep, point by point, on the evidence from handwriting to spelling to phrases and usages that match verse in Shakespeare's plays with curious coincidence. Enough to convince you? Fascinating and, no surprise, controversial.

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