title: The Great Shakespeare Hoax: After Unmasking the Fraudulent Pretender, Search for the True Genius Begins (Building the Case for Edward De Vere as Shakespeare, Vol. 1)
author: Paul Hemenway Altrocchi
description: Dr. Paul Altrocchi, neurologist and lifelong supporter of Edward de Vere as Shakespeare, has published a book and many papers on the Shakespeare authorship question. Hank Whittemore, writer and actor, has published numerous articles on Edward de Vere and a powerful, thought-provoking analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets entitled The Monument.
zlib_text: _For Kevin, with thanks_
  
   **INTRODUCTION:**
  
   **A word for all occasions**
  
  London’s Haymarket Theatre was packed to the rafters on the evening of 16
  January 1749. An excitable audience had filled it to capacity after an advert
  in a local newspaper had promised a performance by a conjuror apparently able
  to transport himself from centre stage and into an empty wine bottle on a
  table nearby. The feat sounded too incredible to be true, for the very good
  reason that it was. The advertisement was a hoax.
  
  Precisely who perpetrated it remains debatable, but when it became clear that
  a teleporting conjuror was not going to perform that night, one of the
  Haymarket’s staff bravely came to the stage to explain that the performance
  would have to be cancelled – and in response the audience erupted into a
  furious riot that all but destroyed the theatre’s interior. But this curious
  event did have a silver lining, at least: it is the origin of the bizarre and
  seldom-used word _bottle-conjuror_ , wh