What if the world?s most famous playwright is a woman you?ve never heard of? Meet Emilia Bassano, a ward of English aristocrats in Elizabethan London. Her education has endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but still she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees the theatre, Emilia discovers the power of stories to beguile audiences. Secretly, she forms a plan to bring a play of her own to the stage - by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work. In modern-day Manhattan, playwright Melina Green finds a woman's voice is still worth less than a man's. But, inspired by the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, Melina takes a lesson from history and submits a play under a male pseudonym . . . Moving between Elizabethan England and modern day Manhattan, By Any Other Name is a beautifully written, compelling novel that explores the theme of identity and the ways in which two women, centuries apart?one of whom might just be the real author of Shakespeare?s plays?are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.