In the Ganymede Deep Archive, doctoral candidate Julian Marlowe unearthed what he believed to be the lost primary source for the most important legal document in human history: the Montague-Capulet Accords, foundation of four thousand years of interstellar law.

What he found was a vivid, firsthand record of corporate warfare on Verona Station—a parking dispute that escalated, star-crossed lovers from rival houses, a well-meaning chaplain with a binder, a sleeping-death gambit, and a billing dispute with a relay station that changed everything.

Julian’s scholarship is impeccable. His footnotes are exhaustive. His conclusions are… almost entirely wrong.

Enter Simon Quill, pre-diaspora literary historian and professional footnote terrorist. With dry precision and mounting delight, Quill annotates Julian’s thesis, revealing the “historical document” to be something far older—and far more dangerous: a four-hundred-year-old play by one William Shakespeare that somehow survived six millennia of telephone, two archival catastrophes, and the Gap to become the unlikely blueprint for galactic civilization.

Part scholarly farce, part heartfelt dramedy, Romeo and Juliet: A History is a love letter to stories that refuse to stay fiction. Because sometimes the most useful thing a playwright can do is tell the truth so well that exhausted bureaucrats, four thousand years later, mistake it for history—and build the stars on it.

By William Shakespeare
As Told By Julian Marlowe
Compiled & Edited By Simon Quill

For readers who loved Galaxy Quest, Terry Pratchett’s footnotes, and the quiet devastation of realizing a story might be the most real thing we have.