Sets forth Bacon's belief that Shakespeare's plays were written by a group of eminent men of the time, including Sir Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, and Sir Walter Raleigh. The author's concepts, labelled Baconian theory, suggest that the plays contain a vast concealed wealth of wisdom, hidden in enigmas and puzzles to be deciphered. Nathaniel Hawthorne, though not a convert, wrote a preface and helped finance the book.