Shakespeare authorship question

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Cover of The Shakespeare Controversy, one of numerous research books on the authorship debate.

The Shakespeare authorship question is the ongoing debate, first recorded in the early 18th century, about whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually written by another writer, or group of writers. Those who question the traditional attribution believe that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by the author (or authors) to keep the writer's true identity secret. Among the numerous candidates that have been proposed, major nominees include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby), and Edward de Vere, (17th Earl of Oxford), who, since first being proposed in the 1920s, has gained many notable followers and has become the prevalent alternative authorship candidate.

Authorship doubters believe there is a lack of concrete evidence proving that the actor/businessman baptised as "Shakspere" of Stratford had the necessary background to create the body of literary works that bear the similar name "Shakespeare", and that the many personal attributes and topical references inferred from Shakespeare's writings fail to match the known facts about the Stratford man. Very little biographical information exists about him and this lack of solid information leaves an enigmatic figure. Mainstream scholars, however, find this lack of information unsurprising, given that in Elizabethan/Jacobean England the lives of commoners were not as well documented as those of the gentry and nobility, and any such documents that might have existed are unlikely to have survived until the present day.

Another argument raised by authorship researchers against the mainstream view is the extensive scholarship shown in Shakespeare's works, including an enormous vocabulary of approximately 29,000 different words. Authorship doubters question whether a commoner from a small removed town in the 16th-century, with no known education or personal library, could become so highly expert in such varied topics as translating foreign languages, courtly pastimes and politics, Greek and Latin mythology, legal knowledge, and the latest discoveries in science, medicine and astronomy.

Although mainstream scholars reject all of the proposed alternative candidates, interest in the authorship debate has grown, particularly among independent scholars, theatre professionals and some academicians. This trend continues into the 21st century.

For the purposes of this article the term “Shakespeare” is taken to mean the poet and playwright who wrote the plays and poems in question; and the term “Shakespeare of Stratford” is taken to mean the William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon to whom authorship is generally credited.

Mainstream view

The mainstream view is that the author known as "Shakespeare" was the same William Shakespeare who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, moved to London and became an actor, and "sharer" (part-owner) of the acting company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men (which owned the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars Theatre in London). Before his death in 1616, he divided his time between London and Stratford, where he retired around 1613. In 1623, seven years after his death (and after the death of most of the proposed authorship candidates), his plays were collected for publication in the First Folio edition.

Shakespeare of Stratford is further identified by the following evidence: He and the author of the works, "William Shakespeare," share a similar name; he left gifts to actors from the London company in his will; commendatory poems in the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's works refer to the "Swan of Avon" and his "Stratford monument". Mainstream scholars believe that the latter phrase refers to the funerary monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, which refers to Shakespeare as a writer (comparing him to Virgil and calling his writing a "living art"), and was described as such by visitors to Stratford as far back as the 1630s. Additional evidence which Stratfordians cite to support the mainstream view include a 1592 pamphlet by the playwright Robert Greene called Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, in which Greene chastises a playwright whom he calls "Shake-scene", calling him "an upstart crow" and a "Johannes factotum" (a "Jack-of-all-trades", a man of superficial knowledge), indicating that people were aware of a writer named Shakespeare. Also, poet John Davies once referred to Shakespeare as "our English Terence". Shakespeare's grave monument in Stratford, built within a decade of his death, currently features him with a pen in hand, suggesting that he was known as a writer. When the bust was removed from its niche in 1973, Samuel Schoenbaum examined it and rendered an opinion that the monument he saw was substantially as it was when first erected, with the hands resting on paper and writing-cushion. However, the earliest record of the pen (which evidently broke from the hand in the late eighteenth century and is now represented by a real goose quill) dates from a drawing made in October 1737 by George Vertue, now in the National Portrait Gallery. (Vertue's 1719 rendition of the monument, made before he had actually visited the church, appeared in Pope's 1725 edition of the Complete Works. It was an impression, sourced from the "Chandos portrait".)

Criticism of mainstream view

Shakespeare's Stratford Bust, as shown in Dugdale's Warwickshire in 1656. Doubters note the absence of pen and paper and what appears to be a woolsack, suggesting the figure more likely represents Shakespeare, the merchant-businessman.

Shakespeare's Stratford Bust, as published by Nicholas Rowe in 1709, with similar woolsack and absence of pen and paper.

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Shakespeare's Stratford Bust, as it appears today. Mainstream critics maintain the first two illustrators were simply inaccurate as to details.

The Stratford Bust, as it was represented in print between 1656 and 1709, and how it appears today.

Critics of the mainstream view, known as anti-Stratfordians, have challenged most if not all of the above assertions, claiming there is no direct evidence clearly identifying Shakespeare of Stratford as a playwright. In addition, they do not believe Shakespeare of Stratford and the author shared the same name, noting that, according to Stratfordian scholar, Sir Edmund K. Chambers, not one of Shakespeare of Stratford's six known signatures was actually spelled “Shakespeare” (I.E., Shaksp, Shakspe, Shaksper, Shakspere, Shakspere and Shakspeare). These critics also note that the only theatrical reference in Shakespeare of Stratford's will (gifts to fellow actors) were interlined – i.e., inserted between previously written lines – and thus subject to doubt.

Authorship researchers maintain that the term "Swan of Avon" can be interpreted in numerous ways. According to the DeVere Society of England, the term would be applicable to the silent front man of a hidden author, as the distinguishing characteristic of the common swan was its silence - hence the name 'Mute Swan'. Also, Charles Wisner Barrell published extensive findings showing numerous ties between Oxford, the river Avon, and the Avon Valley, where Oxford once owned an estate.

Oxfordian scholar Mark Anderson believes that "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit" could imply Shakespeare of Stratford was being given credit for the work of other writers, and that Davies' mention of "our English Terence" is a mixed reference given that many contemporary Elizabethan scholars knew of Terence as, in reality, an actor who was a front man for one or more Roman aristocratic playwrights. Anti-Stratfordians also assert that Shakespeare of Stratford's grave monument was clearly altered after its creation, as Sir William Dugdale's 1656 engraving of the original merely portrays a man holding a grain sack.

Commenting on the lack of evidence surrounding Shakespeare of Stratford, professor Trevor-Roper noted “[d]uring his lifetime nobody claimed to know him. Not a single tribute was paid to him at his death. As far as the records go, he was uneducated, had no literary friends, possessed at his death no books, and could not write. It is true, six of his signatures have been found, all spelt differently; but they are so ill-formed that some graphologists suppose the hand to have been guided.”

Authorship doubters

For authorship doubters, evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford was merely a front man for an undisclosed playwright arises from several circumstantial sources, including perceived ambiguities and missing information in the historical evidence supporting his traditional candidacy for authorship. In this regard, doubters note that there are large gaps in the historical record of Shakespeare of Stratford's life, no surviving letter written by him is known to exist, and his three-page will lists no books, journals or plays, and makes no mention of the valuable shares in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres that he supposedly owned.

In addition, doubters assert that the plays require a level of education (including knowledge of foreign languages) greater than that which Shakespeare of Stratford is known to have possessed. They also cite the following: circumstantial evidence suggesting the author was deceased while the Stratford man was still living; doubts of his authorship expressed by his contemporaries; plays that he appeared to be unavailable or unable to write; and perceived parallels between the characters and events in Shakespeare's works and the life of the favoured candidate - with a particular emphasis on the author's familiarity with life in the Elizabethan court.

On 8 September 2007, actors Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance unveiled a "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt", on the authorship of Shakespeare's work, after the final matinee of "I Am Shakespeare" a play investigating the bard's identity, performed in Chichester, England. The Declaration named twenty prominent doubters of the past, including Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud and Charlie Chaplin. The document was sponsored by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition and has been signed by over 1,600 people, including 295 academics, to encourage new research into the question. Jacobi, who endorsed a group theory led by the Earl of Oxford, and Rylance, who was featured in the authorship play, presented a copy of the Declaration to William Leahy, head of English at Brunel University.

Terminology

Stratfordians and anti-Stratfordians

Those who question whether William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was the primary author of Shakespeare's plays are usually referred to as anti-Stratfordians, while those who have no such doubts are often called Stratfordians. Those who identify Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, or the Earl of Oxford as the main author of Shakespeare's plays are commonly referred to as Baconians, Marlovians, or Oxfordians, respectively.

"Shakspere" vs. "Shakespeare"

There was no standardised spelling in Elizabethan England, and Shakespeare of Stratford's name was spelled in many different ways, including "Shakspere", "Shaxper", "Shagspere" and "Shakespeare". Anti-Stratfordians conventionally refer to the man from Stratford as "Shakspere" (the name recorded at his baptism) or "Shaksper" to distinguish him from the author "Shakespeare" or "Shake-speare" (the spellings that appear on the publications). They point out that most references to the man from Stratford in legal documents usually spell the first syllable of his name with only four letters, "Shak-" or sometimes "Shag-" or "Shax-", whereas the dramatist's name is consistently rendered with a long "a" as in "Shake". Stratfordians reject this convention, believing it implies that the Stratford man spelt his name differently from the name appearing on the publications. Because the "Shakspere" convention is controversial, this article uses the name "Shakespeare" throughout.

The idea of secret authorship in Renaissance England

Title page from SHAKE-SPEARE'S SONNETS (1609).

Dedication page from The Sonnets. Both the hyphenated name and the words "ever-living poet", have helped fuel the authorship debate

The publication of SHAKE-SPEARE'S SONNETS in 1609 has provided numerous debating points for authorship proponents on both sides of the question. The hyphenated name also appears on 15 plays published prior to the First Folio

In support of the possibility of Shakespeare of Stratford as "frontman", anti-Stratfordians point to contemporary examples of Elizabethans discussing anonymous or pseudonymous publication by persons of high social status. Describing contemporary writers, the dramatist and pamphleteer Robert Greene wrote that "others ... which for their calling and gravity being loth to have any profane pamphlets pass under their hands, get some other Batillus [a minor Augustan poet] to set his name to their verses,".

Roger Ascham in his book The Schoolmaster discusses his belief that two plays attributed to the Roman dramatist Terence were secretly written by "worthy Scipio, and wise Lælius", because the language is too elevated to have been written by "a seruile stranger" such as Terence.

A specific example from Shakespeare's day is the case of Sir John Hayward. In 1599 he published The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV dedicated to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Queen Elizabeth and her advisers disliked the tone of the book and its dedication, and on July 11, Hayward was interrogated before the Privy Council, which was seeking "proof positive of the Earl's [sc. Essex's] long-standing design against the government" in writing a preface to Hayward's work. The Queen "argued that Hayward was pretending to be the author in order to shield 'some more mischievous' person, and that he should be racked so that he might disclose the truth".

"Shake-Speare" as a pseudonym

According to literary historians Taylor and Mosher, "In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Golden Age of pseudonyms, almost every writer used a pseudonym at some time in his career". In this regard, many anti-Stratfordians question the hyphen that often appeared in the name "Shake-speare", which they believe indicated the use of such a pseudonym. Examples of oft-hyphenated names include Tom Tell-truth, Martin Mar-prelate (who pamphleteered against church "prelates") and Cuthbert Curry-nave, who "curried" his "knavish" enemies.

According to authorship researcher Mark Anderson, the hyphenated "Shake-speare" is another example in this vein, alluding to the patron goddess of art and literature, Athena, who sprang from the forehead of Zeus, shaking a spear. Stratfordians have responded that the hyphenated version was not consistent and that the hyphen was merely misplaced, so the issue should be discounted. Oxfordian Charlton Ogburn responded by noting that of the "32 editions of Shakespeare's plays published before the First Folio of 1623 in which the author was named at all, the name was hyphenated in fifteen – almost half." Further, it was hyphenated by John Davies in the famous poem which references the poet as "Our English Terence", by fellow playwright John Webster, and by the epigrammatist of 1639 who wrote, "Shake-speare, we must be silent in thy praise…". Ogburn notes that the hyphen was only used by other writers or publishers, and not by the poet himself (he did not use it in his personal dedications of his two long narrative poems). On this evidence, Ogburn concluded that the hyphenation was not inconsistent or misplaced, and did follow a pattern.

Debate points used by anti-Stratfordians

Shakespeare's education

Authorship doubters believe that the author of Shakespeare's works required a higher education, as the writing of the works displays a knowledge of contemporary science, medicine, astronomy, and several foreign languages. They further assert that there is no evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford ever attained this education. In addition, the writer of the Shakespeare canon exhibited an exceptionally large vocabulary of over 29,000 different words (including word variations), almost five times that of the King James Version of the Bible, which contains approximately 6,000 different words. "The plays of Shakespeare," said Henry Stratford Caldecott in an 1895 Johannesburg lecture, "are so stupendous a monument of learning and genius that, as time passes and they are probed and searched and analysed by successive generations of scholars and critics of all nations, they seem to loom higher and grander, and their hidden beauties and treasured wisdom to be more and more inexhaustible; and so people have come to ask themselves not only, 'Is it humanly possible for William Shakespeare, the country lad from Stratford-on-Avon, to have written them?', but whether it was possible for any one man, whoever he may have been, to have done so."

The Stratfordian position maintains that Shakespeare of Stratford was entitled to attend the The King's School until the age of fourteen, where he would have studied the Latin poets and playwrights such as Plautus and Ovid. As the records of the school's pupils have not survived, Shakespeare of Stratford's attendance cannot be proven.

The school or schools Shakespeare of Stratford might have attended are a matter of speculation as there are no existing admission records for him at any grammar school, university or college. Though there is no evidence that he attended a university, a degree was not a prerequisite for a Renaissance dramatist, and mainstream scholars have long assumed Shakespeare of Stratford to be largely self-educated. A commonly cited parallel is his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, a man whose origins were humbler than the Stratford man, and who rose to become court poet. Like Shakespeare of Stratford, Jonson never completed and perhaps never attended university, and yet he became a man of great learning (later being granted an honorary degree from both Oxford and Cambridge). However, there is clearer evidence for Jonson's self-education than for Shakespeare of Stratford's. Several hundred books owned by Ben Jonson have been found signed and annotated by him but no book has ever been found which proved to have been owned or borrowed by Shakespeare of Stratford. It is known, however, that Jonson had access to a substantial library with which to supplement his education.

Possible proof of Shakespeare of Stratford's self-education has been suggested: A. L. Rowse notes that certain sources for his plays were sold at the shop of the printer Richard Field, a fellow Stratfordian of similar age.

Some contemporary references have been interpreted to say that Shakespeare's works have not always been considered to require an unusual amount of education: Ben Jonson's tribute to Shakespeare in the 1623 First Folio states that his plays were great even though he had "small Latin and less Greek". And it has been argued, most vehemently by Dr Richard Farmer, that a great deal of the classical learning he displays is derived from one text, Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was a set text in many schools at the time. Anti-Stratfordians such as Mark Anderson, however, believe this explanation does not counter the argument that the author also required a knowledge of foreign languages, modern sciences, warfare, aristocratic sports such as tennis, statesmanship, hunting, natural philosophy, history, falconry and the law. Similarly, what Shakespeare called "the first heire of my invention", the poem Venus and Adonis, appears to draw extensively on Giambattista Marino's Adone, which was never translated into English.

Shakespeare's will

Third Page of the Will of William Shakespeare, 1616

Shakespeare of Stratford's will is long and explicit, listing the possessions of a successful bourgeois in detail. However, the will makes no mention of personal papers, letters, or books (books were rare and expensive items at the time) of any kind. In addition, no early poems or manuscripts, plays or unfinished works are listed, nor is there any reference to the valuable shares in the Globe Theatre that the Stratford man reportedly owned.

At the time of Shakespeare of Stratford's death, 18 plays remained unpublished. None of them are mentioned in his will (this contrasts with Sir Francis Bacon, whose two wills refer to work that he wished to be published posthumously). Anti-Stratfordians find it unusual that the Stratford man did not wish his family to profit from his unpublished work or was unconcerned about leaving them to posterity. They find it improbable that he would have submitted all the manuscripts to the King's Men, the playing company of which he was a shareholder. As was the normal practice at the time, Shakespeare's submitted plays were owned jointly by the members of the King's Men.

Shakespeare's grave

Authorship doubters also point to the doggerel written on Shakespeare of Stratford's grave, which reads: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebeare/To digg the dust enclosed heare;/Blest be the man that spares thes stones,/And curst be he that moves my bones." Anti-Stratfordians argue that the trite verse is completely incongruous with Shakespeare's other poetic works. However, historian Andrew Lang has noted that there is no evidence that Shakespeare himself wrote this "mean and vulgar curse".

The 1604 problem

Some researchers believe certain documents imply the actual playwright was dead by 1604, the year continuous publication of new Shakespeare plays "mysteriously stopped", and various scholars have asserted that The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Henry VIII, Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, so-called "later plays", were composed no later than 1604. Researchers cite Shake-speare's Sonnets, 1609, which appeared with "our ever-living Poet" on the title page, words typically used eulogizing someone who has died, yet become immortal. Shakespeare himself used the phrase in this context in Henry VI, part 1 describing the dead Henry V as "[t]hat ever-living man of memory". Researchers also cite one contemporary document that strongly implies that Shakespeare, the Globe shareholder, was dead prior to 1616, when Shakespeare of Stratford died.

The dating debate often revolves around The Tempest, which is considered by many mainstream scholars to have been inspired by William Strachey's description of a 1609 Bermuda shipwreck. Mainstream literary scholar Kenneth Muir, on the other hand, noted "the extent of verbal echoes of the [Bermuda] pamphlets has, I think, been exaggerated. There is hardly a shipwreck in history or fiction which does not mention splitting, in which the ship is not lightened of its cargo, in which the passengers do not give themselves up for lost, in which north winds are not sharp, and in which no one gets to shore by clinging to wreckage." Authorship researchers also point to early mainstream Shakespeare researchers Frank Kermode and Geoffrey Bullough, who believed that many of the words and images in The Tempest derive from Richard Eden's "The Decades of the New Worlde Or West India" (1555) and Desiderius Erasmus's "Naufragium"/"The Shipwreck" (1523).

Authorship proponents also note new research by Lynne Kositsky and Roger Stritmatter which they believe confirm the earlier sources cited by Kermode and Bullough. Alden T. Vaughan, however, has challenged the conclusions of Kositsky and Stritmatter in his 2008 paper "A Closer Look at the Evidence", particularly in charging William Strachey with plagiarism - a charge that Vaughan concluded was in error. In 2009, Stritmatter and Kositsky further developed the arguments against Strachey's influence in a Critical Survey article demonstrating the pervasive influence on The Tempest of the much earlier travel narrative, Richard Eden's 1555 Decades of the New World. CS editor William Leahy, describing the article as a "devastating critique," concluded that "the authors show that the continued support of Strachey as Shakespeare's source is, at the very least, highly questionable." For further information on the 1604 problem, see Oxfordian theory.

The First Folio

The frontispiece of the First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. The Folio, including the frontispiece, has generated considerable debate among authorship proponents

The First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, has generated considerable debate among authorship proponents, who have raised questions about the various dedications to "Shake-speare", as well as the famous Folio frontispiece. The engraving itself is usually attributed to Martin Droeshout the Younger. Born in 1601, Droeshout was only 10 years old when Shakespeare of Stratford retired, and only 14 years old when he died. Seven additional years passed before the Folio's publication. These circumstances, authorship proponents believe, make it unlikely that Droeshout actually knew the playwright personally. Because of this, authorship researchers have questioned the circumstances behind the work, including Jonson's assertion that the engraving was "true to life".

Stratfordians respond that the assumption has long been that Droeshout worked from a sketch. Charlton Ogburn, author of The Mysterious William Shakespeare (1984), also noted that the curved line running from the ear to the chin makes the face appear more of a "mask" than a true representation of an actual person. Art historians see nothing unusual in these features.

Shakespeare's literacy

No letter written by Shakespeare is known to exist. The Anti-Stratfordian position maintains it would only be logical for a man of Shakespeare's writing ability to compose numerous letters, and given the man's supposed fame they find it unbelievable that not one letter, or record of a letter, exists. According to authorship researcher Diana Price, Shakespeare of Stratford's wife Anne and daughter Judith appear to have been illiterate, suggesting he did not teach them to write. Mainstream scholars have responded that it was normal for middle-class women in the 17th century to be illiterate, and statistical evidence compiled by David Cressy indicates that a large percentage (as much as 90%) of these women may not have had enough education to sign their own names.

Shakespeare's class

Anti-Stratfordians believe that a provincial glovemaker's son who resided in Stratford until early adulthood would be unlikely to have written plays that deal so personally with the activities, travel and lives of the nobility. The view is summarised by Charles Chaplin: "In the work of greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere, but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare. Whoever wrote [Shakespeare] had an aristocratic attitude." Orthodox scholars respond that the glamorous world of the aristocracy was a popular setting for plays in this period. They add that numerous English Renaissance playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and others wrote about the nobility despite their own humble origins.

Anti-Stratfordians stress that the plays show a detailed understanding of politics, the law and foreign languages that would have been impossible to attain without an aristocratic or university upbringing. Orthodox scholars respond that Shakespeare was an upwardly mobile man: his company regularly performed at court and he thus had ample opportunity to observe courtly life. In addition, his theatrical career made him wealthy and he eventually acquired a coat of arms for his family and the title of gentleman, like many other wealthy middle class men in this period.

In The Genius of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate points out that the class argument is reversible: the plays contain details of lower-class life in which aristocrats might have little knowledge. Many of Shakespeare's most vivid characters are lower class or associate with this milieu, such as Falstaff, Nick Bottom, Autolycus, Sir Toby Belch, etc. Anti-Stratfordians have responded that while the author's depiction of nobility was highly personal and multi-faceted, his treatment of the peasant class was quite different, including comedic and insulting names (Bullcalfe, Elbow, Bottom, Belch), with these characters often portrayed as either the butt of jokes, or as an angry mob.

It has also been noted that in the 17th century, Shakespeare was not thought of as an expert on the court, but as a "child of nature" who "Warble[d] his native wood-notes wild" as John Milton put it in his poem L'Allegro. John Dryden wrote in 1668 that playwrights Beaumont and Fletcher "understood and imitated the conversation of Gentlemen much better" than Shakespeare, and in 1673 wrote of Elizabethan playwrights in general that "I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in courts, except Ben Jonson."

Anti-Stratfordians note that it took Ben Jonson (who had a similar low class to Shakespeare) 12 years from his first play to obtain noble patronage from Prince Henry for his commentary The Masque of Queens (1609). They thus express doubt that the true author could have obtained the Earl of Southampton's patronage for one of his first published works, the long poem Venus and Adonis (1593).

Comments by contemporaries

Comments on Shakespeare by Elizabethan literary figures have been read by anti-Stratfordians as expressions of doubt about his authorship:

Ben Jonson had a contradictory relationship with Shakespeare. He regarded him as a friend – saying "I loved the man" – and wrote tributes to him in the First Folio. However, Jonson also wrote that Shakespeare was too wordy: Commenting on the Players' commendation of Shakespeare for never blotting out a line, Jonson wrote "would he had blotted a thousand" and that "he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped." In the same work, he scoffs at a line Shakespeare wrote "in the person of Caesar": "Caesar never did wrong but with just cause", which Jonson calls "ridiculous," and indeed the text as preserved in the First Folio carries a different line: "Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause / Will he be satisfied" (3.1). Jonson ridiculed the line again in his play The Staple of News, without directly referring to Shakespeare. Some anti-Stratfordians interpret these comments as expressions of doubt about Shakespeare's ability to have written the plays.

In Robert Greene's posthumous publication Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592; published, and possibly written, by fellow dramatist Henry Chettle) a dramatist labeled "Shake-scene" is vilified as "an upstart Crowe beautified with our feathers", along with a quotation from Henry VI, Part 3. The orthodox view is that Greene is criticizing the relatively unsophisticated Shakespeare of Stratford for invading the domain of the university-educated playwright Greene. Some anti-Stratfordians claim that Greene is in fact doubting Shakespeare's authorship. In Greene's earlier work Mirror of Modesty (1584), the dedication mentions "Ezops Crowe, which deckt hir selfe with others feathers" referring to Aesop's fable (The Crow, the Eagle, and the Feathers) against people who boast they have something they do not.

In John Marston's satirical poem The Scourge of Villainy (1598), Marston rails against the upper classes being "polluted" by sexual interactions with the lower classes. Seasoning his piece with sexual metaphors, he then asks:

Shall broking pandars sucke Nobilitie?

Soyling fayre stems with foule impuritie?

Nay, shall a trencher slaue extenuate,

Some Lucrece rape? And straight magnificate

Lewd Jovian Lust? Whilst my satyrick vaine

Shall muzzled be, not daring out to straine

His tearing paw? No gloomy Juvenall,

Though to thy fortunes I disastrous fall.

There is a tradition that the satirist Juvenal became "gloomy" after being exiled by Domitian for having lampooned an actor that the emperor was in love with. Anti-stratfordians believe Marston's piece can be interpreted as being directed at an actor, and questioning whether such a lower class "trencher slave" is extenuating (making light of) "some Lucrece rape" (The Rape of Lucrece), with Shakespeare depicted as a "broking pandar" (procurer), implicitly questioning his credentials to "sucke Nobilitie", (attract the Earl of Southampton's patronage of him.

Evidence in the poems

Anti-Stratfordians such as Charlton Ogburn have repeatedly used Shakespeare's sonnets as evidence for their positions. They cite Sonnet 76 as evidence of the author's insinuation that he was using such a ruse:

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

Some mainstream scholars have interpreted the sonnets as personal expressions of emotions and experiences: the English romantic poet Wordsworth, for example, said that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart." Other scholars have considered them mere academic exercises, or perhaps works made for hire. Those who consider the sonnets a key to the author's personality have attempted to identify the "Fair Youth," the "Dark Lady," and the "Rival Poet," but there is no consensus about how these characters fit into the life of Shakespeare of Stratford Anti-Stratfordians believe the characters can be more easily identified as figures in the lives of their proposed candidates.

Geographical knowledge

Most anti-Stratfordians believe that a well-travelled man wrote the plays, as many of them are set in European countries and show great attention to local details. Orthodox scholars respond that numerous plays of this period by other playwrights are set in foreign locations and Shakespeare is thus entirely conventional in this regard. In addition, in many cases Shakespeare did not invent the setting, but borrowed it from the source he was using for the plot.

Even outside of the authorship question, there has been debate about the extent of geographical knowledge displayed by Shakespeare. Some scholars argue that there is very little topographical information in the texts (nowhere in Othello or the Merchant of Venice are the many canals of Venice mentioned). They also note apparent mistakes: for example, Shakespeare refers to Bohemia as having a coastline in The Winter's Tale (the region is landlocked), refers to Verona and Milan as seaports in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (the cities are inland), in All's Well That Ends Well he suggests that a journey from Paris to Northern Spain would pass through Italy, and in Timon of Athens he believes that there are substantial tides in the Mediterranean Sea, and that they take place once instead of twice a day.

Answers to these objections have been made by other scholars (both orthodox and anti-Stratfordian). One explanation given for Bohemia having a coastline is that the same geographical mistake was already present in Shakespeare's source, Robert Greene's Pandosto, and the play merely reproduced it. Another is the author's awareness that the kingdom of Bohemia in the 13th century under Ottokar II stretched to the Adriatic and that in Shakespeare's time (since 1558) the King of Bohemia also was Holy Roman Emperor and ruled over the Adriatic coast neighboring the Venetian Republic.

It has been noted that The Merchant of Venice demonstrates detailed knowledge of the city, including the obscure facts that the Duke held two votes in the City Council, and that a dish of baked doves was a time-honored gift in northern Italy. Shakespeare also used the local word, "traghetto", for the Venetian mode of transport (printed as 'traject' in the published texts). Anti-Stratfordians suggest that the above information would most likely be obtained from first-hand experience of the regions under discussion and conclude that the author of the plays could have been a diplomat, aristocrat or politician.

Mainstream scholars assert that Shakespeare's plays contain several colloquial names for flora and fauna that are unique to Warwickshire, where Stratford-upon-Avon is located, for example 'love in idleness' in A Midsummer Night's Dream. These names may suggest that a Warwickshire native might have written the plays. Warwickshire characters from the villages of Burtonheath and Wincot, both near Stratford, are identifiable in The Taming of the Shrew. Oxfordian researchers respond that the Earl of Oxford owned a manor house in Bilton, Warwickshire which, records show, he leased out in 1574 and sold in 1581.

Candidates and their champions

History of alternative attributions

Diagram illustrating the time spans of the best-known authorship candidates. Note that Marlovians do not believe that Marlowe died in 1593. Note also that continuous publication of "new" works by Shakespeare stopped in 1603 before a 5-year gap. Publication resumed briefly in 1608 (Lear) and 1609 (Pericles), a 13-year gap, then again in 1622 (Othello) and 1623 (16 new plays included in the First Folio). The last new Shakespeare publication was The Two Noble Kinsmen in 1634

According to the anti-Stratfordian viewpoint, the first indirect statements regarding suspicions as to the authorship of "Shakespeare's" works come from the Elizabethans themselves: As early as 1595 the poet Thomas Edwards published his Narcissus and L'Envoy to Narcissus in which he seems to hint at "Shakespeare's" identity as an aristocrat - whilst referring to the poet of Venus and Adonis Edwards addresses him as one dressed "in purple robes", purple being a symbol of aristocracy; Elizabethan satirists, Joseph Hall in 1597 and John Marston in 1598 imply that Francis Bacon is the author of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; around the turn of the seventeenth century, Gabriel Harvey, Cambridge don and scholar, left marginalia in his copy of Chaucer's works that implied that he believed Sir Edward Dyer was the author of at least Venus and Adonis. According to authorship researcher Diana Price, all of these were, however, veiled references in the authorship debate that were never, although coming very close at times, explicitly stated.

The first direct statements of doubt about Shakespeare of Stratford's authorship were made in the 18th century, when unorthodox views of Shakespeare were expressed in three allegorical stories. In An Essay Against Too Much Reading (1728) by a 'Captain' Golding, Shakespeare is described as merely a collaborator who "in all probability cou'd not write English". In The Life and Adventures of Common Sense (1769) by Herbert Lawrence, Shakespeare is portrayed as a "shifty theatrical character ... and incorrigible thief". In The Story of the Learned Pig (1786) by an anonymous author described as "an officer of the Royal Navy", Shakespeare is merely a front for the real author, a chap called Pimping Billy.

Around this time, James Wilmot, a Warwickshire clergyman and scholar, was researching a biography on Shakespeare. He traveled extensively around Stratford, visiting the libraries of country houses within a radius of fifty miles looking for records or correspondence connected with Shakespeare or books that had been owned by him. By 1781, Wilmot had become so appalled at the lack of evidence for Shakespeare of Stratford that he concluded he could not be the author of the works. Wilmot was familiar with the writings of Francis Bacon and formed the opinion that he was more likely the real author of the Shakespearean canon. He confided this to one James Cowell. Cowell disclosed it in a paper read to the Ipswich Philosophical Society in 1805 (Cowell's paper was only rediscovered in 1932).

Bacon would emerge again in the 19th century as the most popular alternative candidate when, at the height of bardolatry, the "authorship question" was popularised. Many 19th century doubters, however, declared themselves agnostics and refused to endorse an alternative. The American populist poet Walt Whitman gave voice to this skepticism when he told Horace Traubel, "I go with you fellows when you say no to Shaksper: that's about as far as I have got. As to Bacon, well, we'll see, we'll see." Starting in 1908, Sir George Greenwood engaged in a series of well-publicised debates with Shakespearean biographer Sir Sidney Lee and author J.M. Robertson. Throughout his numerous books on the authorship question, Greenwood contented himself to argue against the traditional attribution of the works and never supported the case for a particular alternative candidate. In 1922, he joined John Thomas Looney, the first to argue for the authorship of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, in founding The Shakespeare Fellowship, an international organization dedicated to promoting discussion and debate on the authorship question.

The poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe has also been a popular candidate during the 20th century. Many other candidates—among them de Vere's son in law William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby -- have been suggested, but have failed to gather large followings.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Main article: Oxfordian theory

Edward de Vere - 17th Earl of Oxford is the leading alternative candidate for the author behind the alleged pseudonym, Shake-Speare

The most popular latter-day candidate is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. This theory was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in 1920, whose work persuaded Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles, Marjorie Bowen, and many other early 20th-century intellectuals. The theory was brought to greater prominence by Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare (1984), after which Oxford rapidly became the favored alternative to the orthodox view of authorship. Advocates of Oxford are usually referred to as Oxfordians.

Oxfordians base their theory on what they consider to be multiple and striking similarities between Oxford's biography and numerous events in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, in particular incidences in Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew and All's Well That Ends Well. Oxfordians also point to the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright; his reputation as a concealed poet, his closeness to Queen Elizabeth I, the Earl of Southampton and Court life; underlined passages in his Bible that they assert correspond to quotations in Shakespeare's plays; parallel phraseology and similarity of thought between Shakespeare's work and Oxford's remaining letters and poetry; his extensive education and intelligence and his record of travel throughout France and Italy, including the sites of most of the plays themselves.

Supporters of the orthodox view would dispute most if not all of these contentions. For them, the most compelling evidence against Oxford is that he died in 1604, whereas they contend that a number of plays by Shakespeare may have been written after that date. Oxfordians, and some conventional scholars, respond that orthodox scholars have long dated the plays to suit their own candidate, and assert that there is no conclusive evidence that the plays or poems were written past Oxford's death in 1604. For a dating of Shakespeare's plays according to the Oxfordian theory, see Chronology of Shakespeare's plays – Oxfordian.

Some mainstream scholars also consider Oxford's published poems to bear no stylistic resemblance to the works of Shakespeare. Oxfordians counter that argument by pointing out that the published Oxford poems are those of a very young man, and as such are juvenilia. They support this argument by citing parallels between Oxford's poetry and Shakespeare's early play, Romeo and Juliet. According to Shakespeare scholar Walter Klier, in a recent study published in November 2009 researcher Kurt Kreiler asserted that Oxford’s juvenilia "represent the path to Shakespeare and already foreshadow the sedulous stylist that Shakespeare was to become."

For a more detailed examination of the parallels between Shakespeare's plays and Oxford's biography according to the Oxfordian movement, see Oxfordian theory: Parallels with Shakespeare's plays

Sir Francis Bacon

Main article: Baconian theory

Sir Francis Bacon is often cited as a possible author of Shakespeare's plays

In 1856, William Henry Smith put forth the claim that the author of Shakespeare's plays was Sir Francis Bacon, a major scientist, philosopher, courtier, diplomat, essayist, historian and successful politician, who served as Solicitor General (1607), Attorney General (1613) and Lord Chancellor (1618).

Smith was supported by Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded(1857), in which she maintains that Shakespeare's work was in fact written by a a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, who collaborated for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to assume the responsibility. She professed to discover this system beneath the superficial text of the plays. Constance Mary Fearon Pott (1833–1915) adopted a modified form of this view, founding the Francis Bacon Society in 1885, and publishing her Bacon-centered theory in Francis Bacon and his secret society (1891).

Since Bacon commented that play-acting was used by the ancients "as a means of educating men's minds to virtue," a non-esoteric view is that Bacon acted alone and to serve his Great Instauration project he left his moral philosophy to posterity in the Shakespeare plays (e.g. the nature of good government exemplified by Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part 2). Having outlined both a scientific and moral philosophy in his Advancement of Learning (1605) only Bacon's scientific philosophy was known to have been published during his lifetime (Novum Organum 1620).

Supporters of Bacon draw attention to similarities between specific phrases from the plays and those written down by Bacon in his wastebook, the Promus, which was unknown to the public for a period of more than 200 years after it was written. A great number of these entries are reproduced in the Shakespeare plays often preceding publication and the performance dates of those plays. Bacon confesses in a letter to being a "concealed poet" and was on the governing council of the Virginia Company when William Strachey's letter from the Virginia colony arrived in England which, according to many scholars, was used to write The Tempest. There is also evidence that it was not Shakspere's company who gave the first known performance of The Comedy of Errors on Innocent's Day 1594-5 but the Gray's Inn Players, and there is further evidence that this was a company that Bacon controlled (see Baconian theory article).

Despite Percy Bysshe Shelley's testimony that "Lord Bacon was a poet", the main argument usually levelled against Bacon's candidacy is that what little poetry has been attributed to Bacon is abrupt and stilted, unlike Shakespeare's. It has also been noted that Bacon was still living when the Sonnets were published in 1609, yet he made no effort to claim them or to collect royalties on them.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe has been cited as a possible author for Shakespeare's works

Main article: Marlovian theory

A case for the gifted young playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe was made as early as 1895, but the creator of the most detailed theory of Marlowe's authorship was Calvin Hoffman, an American journalist whose book on the subject, The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare, was published in 1955.

Marlowe created a stir with his literary output while attending Cambridge as a scholarship student. The young writer was the first to translate Ovid's Amores into English – translations which were subsequently ordered publicly burned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. His translation and adaptation into blank verse of Lucan's Pharsalia is one of the earliest English verses written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and has influenced poets from Milton to Wordsworth. While still a university student, Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus was produced in London; shortly after he earned his M.A. and left Cambridge, his play Tamburlaine the Great appeared on the London stage for 200 performances.

Marlowe was said to have been murdered in 1593 by a group of spies, including Ingram Frizer, a servant of Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe's patron. A theory has developed that Marlowe, who may well have been facing an impending death penalty for heresy, was saved by the faking of his death (with the aid of people in high places such as Thomas Walsingham and Marlowe's possible employer, Lord Burghley) and that he subsequently wrote the works credited to William Shakespeare while in exile in Italy. Hoffman argued that Shakespeare of Stratford was paid by the conspirators to sign his name on the manuscripts, to conceal the fact that Marlowe was still alive.

Supporters of Marlovian theory also point to stylometric tests and studies of parallel phraseology, which sought to show how "both" authors used similar vocabulary and a similar style.

Mainstream scholars find the argument for Marlowe's faked death unconvincing. They also find the writings of Marlowe and Shakespeare very different, and attribute any similarities to the popularity and influence of Marlowe's work on subsequent dramatists such as Shakespeare.

Group Theory

In the 1960s, the most popular general theory was that Shakespeare's plays and poems were the work of a group rather than one individual. A group consisting of De Vere, Bacon, William Stanley, Mary Sidney, and others, has been put forward, for example. This theory has been often noted, most recently by renowned actor Derek Jacobi, who told the British press "I subscribe to the group theory. I don't think anybody could do it on their own. I think the leading light was probably de Vere, as I agree that an author writes about his own experiences, his own life and personalities."

Other candidates

A less well known candidate, William Nugent, was first put forward in Ireland by the distinguished Meath historian Elizabeth Hickey and was expanded upon by Brian Nugent in his 2008 publication, Shakespeare was Irish!. William Nugent (1550–1625) was a nobleman from Delvin in County Westmeath who was imprisoned by the state for opposing the cess in Ireland in the 1570s, and he rebelled in 1581 losing a number of supporters to the hangman's noose and causing him to flee into exile, first into Scotland, then France and Italy. During his exile he met with most of the great European leaders, such as the Pope, the King's of Spain, France and Scotland, and the Duke of Guise, and was involved in European-wide planning for an invasion of England. He was known for his great literary talents, as described by Irish historian John Lynch: "he learnt the more difficult niceties of the Italian language and carried his proficiency to that point that he could write Italian poetry with elegance. Before that however he had been very successfull in writing poetry in Latin, English and Irish and would yield to none in the precision and excellence of his verses in each of these languages. His poems which speak for themselves are still extant." As early as 1577 he was known as a composer of "divers sonnets" in English, to quote his friend Richard Stanihurst writing in Chapter 7 of Holinshed's Chronicles.

In 2007, The Master of Shakespeare by A. W. L. Saunders proposed a "new" candidate — Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628). Greville was an aristocrat, courtier, statesman, sailor, soldier, spymaster, literary patron, dramatist, historian and poet. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, where he met his lifelong friend Sir Philip Sidney, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He was Clerk to the Council of Wales and the Marches, Treasurer of the Navy, and from 1614 to 1621, Chancellor of the Exchequer. After the death of his father in 1606, Fulke became Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon and he held that post until his own death in 1628.

In a March 2007 lecture at the Smithsonian Institution, John Hudson proposed a new authorship candidate, the Jewish poet Aemelia (Emilia) Bassano Lanier (1569–1645), the first woman in England to publish a book of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). Born in London, into a family of Marrano Jewish musicians who came from Venice and were of Moorish ancestry, Hudson posited that Lanier fits many aspects of the biographical profile described in the plays. A. L. Rowse proposed Lanier as the "dark lady" of the Sonnets. She was also the longterm mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the man in charge of the English theatre and the patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Hudson proposed that, as a hidden Jew, this explained the use of Hebrew and Jewish religious allegories in the plays. Also, unlike Shakespeare, she died poor, depised, lacking honor and proud titles, as described in Sonnets numbers 37, 29, 81, 111 and 25.

In The Truth Will Out, published in 2005, Brenda James, a part-time lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, and Professor William Rubinstein, professor of history at Aberystwyth University, argue that Henry Neville, a contemporary Elizabethan English diplomat and distant relative of Shakespeare, is possibly the true author of the plays. Neville's career placed him in the locations of some of the plays at approximately the dates of their authorship.

Other candidates proposed include Mary Sidney; William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby; Sir Edward Dyer; or Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland (sometimes with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney, and her aunt Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, as co-authors). At least fifty others have also been proposed, including the Catholic martyr St Edmund Campion; and Queen Elizabeth (based on a supposed resemblance between a portrait of the Queen and the engraving of Shakespeare that appears in the First Folio). Malcolm X argued that Shakespeare was actually King James I.

Francis Carr proposed that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare and the author of Don Quixote. A 2007 film called Miguel and William, written and directed by Inés París, explores the parallels and alleged collaboration between Cervantes and Shakespeare. This romantic comedy shows Shakespeare spending the years 1586 to 1592 in Madrid where he enjoys a great friendship with Cervantes.

Further reading

Mainstream/Neutral/Questioning

• George Greenwood The Shakespeare Problem Restated (London: John Lane, 1908).
• Mark Twain Is Shakespeare Dead?: From My Autobiography, (Harper & Brothers, 1909). (General anti-Stratfordian)
• George Greenwood Shakespeare's Law and Latin. (London: Watts & Co., 1916). ISBN 1-402-14020-7
• George Greenwood Is There a Shakespeare Problem? (London: John Lane, 1916).
• George Greenwood Shakespeare's Law. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920).
• H. N. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants (London, 1962). (An overview written from an orthodox perspective).
• E.A.J. Honigman: The Lost Years, 1985.
• Ian Wilson: Shakespeare - The Evidence, (Headline Book Publishing, 1993). ISBN 0-312-20005-6 (Mainstream argument)
• Irvin Leigh Matus, Shakespeare, in Fact (London: Continuum, 1999). ISBN 0-8264-0928-8. (Orthodox response to the Oxford theory).
• John Michell, Who Wrote Shakespeare? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999). ISBN 0-500-28113-0. (An overview from a neutral perspective).
• Diana Price, Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem (Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 2001). ISBN 0-313-31202-8 [1]. (Introduction to the evidentiary problems of the orthodox tradition).
• Bertram Fields, Players: The Mysterious Identity of William Shakespeare (2005) ISBN 0-060-77559-9
• Scott McCrea: "The Case for Shakespeare", (Westport CT: Praeger, 2005). ISBN 0-275-98527-X.
• Frederick A. Keller Spearing the Wild Blue Boar: Shakespeare vs Oxford - The Authorship Question. (iUniverse, June 30, 2009). ISBN 978-1440121401 (Orthodox response to the Oxford theory).

Oxfordian

• J. Thomas Looney Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. (London: Cecil Palmer, 1920). 1446 pages [2]. ISBN 0-804-61877-1 (The first book to promote the Oxford theory.)
• Bernard Mordaunt Ward The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) From Contemporary Documents (London: John Murray, 1928).
• Charlton Ogburn The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Mask. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1984). ISBN 0-939-00967-6 (Influential book that criticises orthodox scholarship and promotes the Oxford theory).
• William Plumer Fowler Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters. (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher, 1986). ISBN 0-914-33912-5
• Al Austin and Judy Woodruff The Shakespeare Mystery, 1989 Frontline documentary. [3]. (Documentary film about the Oxford case.)
• Richard Whalen Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. (Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 1994). ISBN 0-313-36050-2
• Joseph Sobran Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). ISBN 0-684-82658-5
• Roger A. Stritmatter The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible: Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and Historical Consequence. 2001 University of Massachusetts PhD dissertation. [4]
• Richard Malim (Ed.) Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604. (London: Parapress, 2004). ISBN 1-898-59479-1
• Mark Anderson, "Shakespeare" by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare (Gotham Press, 2005). ISBN 1-592-40215-1
• William Farina De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon (McFarland & Company, 2005) ISBN 0-786-42383-8
• Warren Hope and Kim Holston The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Authorship Theories (2nd Edition) (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 2009). ISBN 0-786-43917-3

Baconian

• N. B. Cockburn, The Bacon Shakespeare Question - the Baconian theory made sane, 740 pages, private publication, 1998 (Contents)
• Barry R. Clarke, The Shakespeare Puzzle - A non-esoteric Baconian theory
• Peter Dawkins: The Shakespeare Enigma, Polair Publ., London 2004, ISBN 0-9545389-4-3 (engl.)
• Amelie Deventer von Kunow, Francis Bacon: Last of the Tudors, trans. Willard Parker (1924)
• Penn Leary, Bacon Is Shakespeare, Cryptographic Shakespeare (n.d.)
• Fellows, Virginia M., The Shakespeare Code (2006) ISBN 978-1-932890-02-5.
• Baconian Evidence For Shakespeare Evidence

Marlovian

• Wilbur Gleason Ziegler, It was Marlowe: a story of the secret of three centuries (Chicago: Donahue, Henneberry & Co., 1895). (Fiction, but with a foreword first proposing the idea)
• Archie Webster, Was Marlowe the Man?, The National Review (1923) Vol. 82 pp. 81–86.
• Calvin Hoffman, The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare (Julian Messner, 1955); also published as The Man who was Shakespeare (London: Max Parrish & Co. Ltd., 1955).
• David Rhys Williams, Shakespeare, Thy Name is Marlowe (Philosophical Library, 1966). ISBN 0-806-53015-4
• William Honey, The Life, Loves and Achievements of Christopher Marlowe, alias Shakespeare (1982). ISBN 0-950-93950-1
• A.D. Wraight, The Story that the Sonnets Tell (Adam Hart Publishers, 1994). ISBN 1-897-76301-8
• A.D. Wraight, Shakespeare: New Evidence (Adam Hart Publishers, 1996). ISBN 1-897-76309-3
• Daryl Pinksen, Marlowe's Ghost: The Blacklisting of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (Universe, 2008) ISBN 0-595-47514-0
• Samuel Blumenfeld The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection: A New Study of the Authorship Question (McFarland, 2008) [5] ISBN 978-0786439027

Rutlandian

• Karl Bleibtreu: Der Wahre Shakespeare, Munich 1907, G. Mueller
• Lewis Frederick Bostelmann: Rutland, New York 1911, Rutland publishing company
• Celestin Demblon: Lord Rutland est Shakespeare, Paris 1912, Charles Carrington
• Pierre S. Porohovshikov (Porokhovshchikov): Shakespeare Unmasked, New York 1940, Savoy book publishers
• Ilya Gililov: The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix, New York : Algora Pub., c2003., ISBN 0-87586-182-2, 0875861814 (pbk.)
• Brian Dutton: Let Shakspere Die: Long Live the Merry Madcap Lord Roger Manner, 5th Earl of Rutland the Real "Shakespeare", c.2007, RoseDog Books

Academic authorship debates

• Jonathan Hope, The Authorship of Shakespeare's Plays: A Socio-Linguistic Study (Cambridge University Press, 1994). (Concerned with the 'academic authorship debate' surrounding Shakespeare's collaborations and apocrypha, not with the false identity theories).
• Robert L. Birch, MSLS, 'The Shakespeare Authorship Question Revisited' discusses the nature of academic debate of historical issues, not their effect on library practice.

External links

General Non-Stratfordian

• The Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, home of the "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identify of William Shakespeare" -- a concise, definitive explanation of the reasons to doubt the case for the Stratford man. Doubters can read, and sign, the Declaration online.
• The Shakespeare Authorship Trust, survey of all the authorship candidates, a site patronised by the actor Mark Rylance and Dr William Leahy of Brunel University, UK
• Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable, an examination of the authorship debate, overview of the major and minor candidates for authorship of the canon, literary collaboration and the group theory, bibliography and forum.

Mainstream

• David Kathman and Terry Ross, The Shakespeare Authorship Page (table of contents)
  • Tom Reedy and David Kathman, "How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts"
• Irvin Leigh Matus's Shakespeare Site (includes several articles defending the orthodox position)
  • Irvin Leigh Matus, "The Case for Shakespeare", from Atlantic Monthly, 1991
• Truth vs. Theory Shakespeare As Autodidact
• T.L. Hubeart, Jr. "The Shakespeare Authorship Question" Brief overview of the rise of anti-Stratfordianism.
• The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: "Shakespeare's authorship" Brief overview.
• Alan H. Nelson's Shakespeare Authorship Pages - created by a biographer of Oxford who does not believe he wrote Shakespeare

Oxfordian

• The Shakespeare Fellowship current research on the Oxfordian theory
• The Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook. Archive of materials on the authorship question, especially from an Oxfordian perspective.
• Articles by Lynne Kositsky and Roger Stritmatter, challenging the methods and conclusions of Stratfordian David Kathman
• Joseph Sobran's response to David Kathman's "historical record" articles
• State of the Debate - Oxfordian vs. Stratfordian
• Shakespeare Oxford Society
• The Shakespeare Mystery (Website for a PBS documentary; includes several articles)
• Joseph Sobran, The Shakespeare Library (collection of Joseph Sobran's Oxfordian columns. Sobran's Alias Shakespeare is mentioned here, also.)
• The Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference A yearly academic conference at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon on Oxfordian theory
• The De Vere Society of Great Britain
• Brief Chronicles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Authorship Studies. A peer-reviewed interdisciplinary publication, Brief Chronicles is overseen by an Editorial Board of academicians with terminal degrees and distinguished records of scholarship and teaching. The journal publishes research-based notes, articles, and monographs, as well as essays and reviews of books, theater productions, and movies based on the drama and literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Baconian

• N. Cockburn, The Bacon–Shakespeare Question, private publication 1998 (Contents) A barrister's presentation of the evidence.
• http://www.baconsocietyinc.org - the first official champions of the Baconian cause. Since 1886 the Francis Bacon Society has engaged with the authorship question and publishes the journal Baconiana [6] .
• http://www.fbrt.org.uk - The Francis Bacon Research Trust, furthering research and understanding into the life, works and contemporaries of Francis Bacon, the Shakespeare plays and the Western Wisdom Traditions.

Marlovian

• Peter Farey's Marlowe Page
• Carlo DiNota's The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection (a Marlovian website/blog started in May 2008, with regular contributions from the world's leading Marlovians)
• The International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society. ("Our Belief is that Christopher Marlowe - in his day England's greatest playwright - did not die in 1593 but survived to write most of what is now assumed to be the work of William Shakespeare.")
• Frontline: Much Ado About Something(website for a TV documentary)
• Marlowe Lives! (collection of articles, documents and links)
• Jeffrey Gantz, review of Hamlet, by William Shakespear and Christopher Marlowe: 400th Anniversary Edition (a sceptical review of a Marlovian book)
• Peter Bull, Shakespeare's Sonnets Written by Kit Marlowe
• German Marlowe-Shakespeare Authorship Webpage

Other candidates

• Cervantes y Shakespeare eran la misma persona (in Spanish) Shakespeare was in fact a disguised Cervantes
• The Master of Shakespeare, A.W.L. Saunders, 2007 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. Website for the book The Master of Shakespeare, 2007
• Chichester Festival Theatre I Am Shakespeare Webcam Daytime Chat-Room Show by Mark Rylance. A new production by former Artistic Director of The Globe Theatre on the Shakespeare authorship debate.
• Mary Sidney - Website for a book by Robin P. Williams on Mary Sidney's authorship
• I. Gililov, The Shakespeare Game: The Mystery of the Great Phoenix (original Russian text)
• HenryNeville.com - Website for a book on Sir Henry Neville's authorship
• LeylandandGoding.com - Animated decryption of the Dedication to the Sonnets and 4 other prefaces to Shakespeare's works that reveal the name Sir Henry Neville
• The URL of Derby (promotes the Earl of Derby)
• Terry Ross, "The Droeshout Engraving of Shakespeare: Why It's NOT Queen Elizabeth".
• Brian Nugent, Shakespeare was Irish! (Co. Meath, 2008), ISBN 978-0-9556812-1-9.