Harvard Yard


 

“People came from all over the world to see it, as if it were another Plymouth Rock or Vatican. Peter Fallon understood. It was the beginning of things and the center of things, too… rich, full of itself … and full of intrigue.”

A tale of families, rebellion, war, and devotion, William Martin’s new novel chronicles the life of America’s most revered university and the real men and women who made Harvard what it is today. It is also the riveting story of a high-stakes treasure hunt… for “a small gift of majestic proportion.”

From the year it was established on the edge of the American wilderness—funded by a quarter of the colony’s tax levy and a gift from one remarkable man—Harvard lived in the eye of a ceaseless storm: a profound conflict between ignorance and enlightenment, faith and reason, elitism and equality. Now, three hundred years later, Peter Fallon—the hero of William Martin’s bestselling novel Back Bay—has found evidence that an undiscovered Shakespeare play is hidden somewhere at the college. An antiquarian who knows many of Harvard’s carefully guarded secrets, Fallon understands the powerful implications of the discovery. But as he sorts through the school’s past, from witch hangings to the fires of the Civil War to the riotous 1960s, he realizes that men and women have risked death, disgrace, and banishment for the very secret he is seeking. As Fallon relives conflicts between generations, families, friends, and lovers, he begins to understand something else: that finding this treasure is a matter of life and death.

Following the destiny of one family from the first class of Harvard to the present day, HARVARD YARD is a brilliant work of historical fiction, a beguiling mystery, and an extraordinary saga of the shaping of the American mind.

 

WILLIAM MARTIN, himself a graduate of Harvard, is a native of Boston, and the author of Citizen Washington, Annapolis, Cape Cod, Back Bay, The Rising of the Moon, and Nerve Endings. He lives in the Boston area.

Author of Back Bay and Cape Cod

$25.95 HPT   ($36.95 in Canada)

 

JACKET ILLUSTRATION BY WENDELL MINOR

HAND LETTERING BY DAVID GATTI

WARNER BOOKS

AN AOL TIME WARNER COMPANY • 0-446-53084-0

COVER PRINTED IN U S A © 2003 WARNER BOOKS

 

This book is a work of historical fiction. In order to give a sense of the times, some names or real people or places have been included in the book. However, the events depicted in this book are imaginary, and the names of nonhistorical persons or events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.

 

Copyright © 2003 by William Martin

All rights reserved.

 

Warner Books, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Visit our Web site at www.twbookmark.com.

An AOL Time Warner Company

 

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: October 2003

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, William

    Harvard Yard / William Martin,

         p. cm.

          ISBN 0-446-53084-0 

         1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616—Manuscripts—Fiction. 2. Manuscripts—Collectors and collecting—Fiction. 3. Harvard University—Fiction. 4. Cambridge (Mass.) —Fiction. 5. Boston (Mass.) —Fiction. I. Title.

 

PS3563.A7297H37   2003

813*.54-dc21 2003012329


 

 

HARVARD YARD

by

WILLIAM MARTIN

 

 

 

 

WARNER BOOKS

An AOL Time Warner Company

 


 

 

 

in memory of

my father

1915-2001

The oldest trees give the best shade.


 



 

Acknowledgments

=========

 

 

 

I can remember thinking, in my last semester at Harvard, back in 1972, that just as I was beginning to figure the place out, they were showing me the door.

I returned to Harvard, in more ways than one, to write this book and continue the process of figuring out an institution of modern complexity built upon a foundation of ancient tradition. Many people were willing to help me bring form to the contours of Harvard history, accuracy to the details of Harvard life, and insight into the workings of Harvard itself.

My thanks to Scott Abell, former President of the Harvard Alumni Association; Michelle Blanc, also of the Alumni Association; Lisa Boudreau, Director of Development and Corporate Relations; Beth Brainerd, Director of Communications at the Harvard libraries; Charles Collier, Senior Philanthropic Advisor; Reverend Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, whose Religion 1513 explores the breadth of Harvard history; Sandra Grindlay, Curator of the Harvard Portrait Collection; Scott Haywood, Superintendent of Kirkland House; Leslie Morris, Curator of Manuscripts at Houghton Library; Terry Shaller of the Alumni Association; Stephen Shoemaker, instructor in Religion 1513; Deborah Smullyan of Harvard magazine; and my son Dan and his friends in the Class of 2004, who gave me a few glimpses of undergraduate life.

Thanks also to Linda Ayres, James Banfield, David Case, Gary Goshgarian, Christopher Keane, Lois Kessin, William Kuntz, and John Spooner.

Special thanks to Peter Drummey, Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, for his enthusiastic assistance with every question and research problem; to Conrad Wright, classmate and Director of Publications at the Massachusetts Historical Society, who first suggested that I explore the relationship between Shakespeare and the Harvard family; and to antiquarian Martin Weinkle, for his willingness to share his insights into the world of rare books. Thanks to my editors, Jamie Raab and John Aherne; and to all my friends at Warner Books, who have been publishing me for fifteen years, including Larry Kirshbaum, Maureen Egen, and Harvey-Jane Kowal; to Wendell Minor, whose cover art has graced so many of my books; and to my agent, Robert Gottlieb.

And as always, thanks to my wife and all my children, who continue to serve as research assistants, proofreaders, opinion-givers, and general inspirations.

 

WILLIAM MARTIN

June 2003 .


 

 

 

 

HARVARD

YARD

 





 

 

 

 

Chapter One

==========

1605-1637

 

 

 

ROBERT HARVARD went often to Stratford-on-Avon, but never before had he gone with such trepidation. Never before had the sight of the tower at Guild Chapel turned his stomach to jelly, nor the sound of his horse’s hooves upon Clopton Bridge given him such cause to turn and ride the whole eighty miles back to London.

Ordinarily, he went to buy cattle, for he owned a butcher shop, and the farmers of Warwickshire raised the fattest cattle in England, and a butcher without cattle was like a tailor without cloth. But on this August afternoon, Robert Harvard went to seek a wife, for he was also a man, and a man without a wife was like a butcher without cattle, or a tailor without cloth, or a playwright without a stage… . And that, he thought, was a string of metaphors to charm the birds from the trees. … Or were they similes?

No matter.