Ok, I read a review that Coslet bases her speculation on how the word “Shakespeare” (or “Sheakespeare”) can be rearranged as an anagram for “A-She-Speaker.”
Then she bases her speculation on “only a sephardic ie Spanish jewess could know the italian geography in the merchant of venice” which us stupid as:
1. 16th century folks from cosmopolitan London backgrounds could well have good geographical knowledge. Italy was the cultural centre of western Europe
2. Shakespeare’s italian geography gets hazy with The Two Gentlemen of Verona, where characters travel from Verona to Milan by ship. Both are entirely inland cities.
Ok, this is enough for me to dismiss this book without reading it, I’m not going to waste money on someone making up stories as facts.
I’d rather watch “Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter”
Neither of those spellings were his preferred spelling. We know there was a real man named Shagsper. Also, A-She-Speaker doesn't sound like a Elizabethan coinage.
Much has been made of Shakespeare's supposed knowledge of European culture and geography. It's clear to me he didn't have any knowledge you couldn't find in books, and in fact he didn't care about the realism of that, or have extensive knowledge.
For example, he has Bohemia have an ocean coast in Winter's Tale.
He was concerned about the story and the poetry, but not cultural realism.