Book excerpt: Originally published in Moscow, The Shakespeare Game quickly hit Russia's "nonfiction best seller" list. It was an intellectual sensation and went through three editions in the first year. Asking why do we have Shakespeare, and who is Shakespeare, Gililov has studied watermarks and printer's type, registration dates, and documented biographical details of Shakespeares contemporaries, considering the physical evidence as well as the personalities and motives of the suspects. Gililov suggests an answer to the Shakespeare riddle -- one that will delight literature fans and confound the proponents of other "candidate bards." He finds the key in the most mysterious Shakespeare poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle, and the collection in which it was published; he identifies its heroes and reveals the meaning in this shocking requiem and its connection with works by Ben Jonson, John Donne and other great contemporaries of "Shakespeare." Along the way, Gililov probes and refutes the mystification around the court jester Thomas Coryate and numerous other Elizabethan/Jacobean literary oddities. Book jacket.