I too have always loved Forest's portrayal of Will. I first read these when came across them in our Polytechnic Eduacation library (aged 19 or so), and loved them, but then I always did like history and historical fiction such as Rosemary Sutcliffe, Ronald Welch etc. Forest's Shakespeare always seemed so real, much more so that Susan Cooper's verion in King of Shadows, though I did enjoy that. But then all Forest' characters seem very real, not 2-dimesional as many other authors.