A review by palliem
The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips

3.0

This book was interesting, though not quite what I expected when I bought it. The narrator (named Arthur Phillips) is the son of a famous and very successful forger who claims to own a lost play of William Shakespeare's--The Tragedy of Arthur. The story is told in the form of an introduction to the original text. It is up to the reader, as he/she reads the story of the play's discovery, to decide if the play is authentic or not. At the end of the novel (or "introduction") is the text of the play. The story in the introduction was interesting and certainly entertaining, but--though I love Mr. William Shakespeare--I found the text of the play at the end a bit long and not very compelling. While the faux play at the end is well-written and the notes (by the forger's son) are amusing, ultimately, I found the novel more entertaining without it.