On The Authorship Controversy

Demonstrates that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon really did write the plays and poems attributed to him via a literary forensics case that puts all other authorship theories to rest.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

It successfully argues that "William Shakespeare" was the pen name of an aristocrat, and that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was a shrewd entrepreneur, not a dramatist."--BOOK JACKET.

ÊIs Shakespeare Dead? is a short, semi-autobiographical work by American humorist Mark Twain. It explores the controversy over the authorship of the Shakespearean literary canon via satire, anecdote, and extensive quotation of contemporary authors on the subject. Ê The original publication spans only 150 pages, and the formatting leaves roughly half of each page blank. The spine is thread bound. It was published in April 1909 by Harper & Brothers, twelve months before Mark Twain's death. Ê The book attracted controversy for incorporating a chapter from The Shakespeare Problem Restated by George Greenwood without permission or proper credit, an oversight Twain blamed on the accidental omission of a footnote by the printer. Ê The book has been described as "one of his least well received and most misunderstood works". Although she admits that Twain appears to have been sincere in his beliefs concerning Shakespeare, Karen Lystra argues that the essay reveals satirical intentions that went beyond the ShakespeareÑBacon controversy of the time. Ê Though it is commonly assumed to be nothing more than a stale and embarrassing rehash of the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, Twain was up to something more than flimsy literary criticism. He was using the debate over Shakespeare's real identity to satirize prejudice, intolerance, and self-importanceÑin himself as well as others.... But after his passionate diatribe against the "Stratfordolators" and his vigorous support of the Baconians, he cheerfully admits that both sides are built on inference. Leaving no doubt about his satirical intent, Twain then gleefully subverts his entire argument. After seeming to be a serious, even angry, combatant, he denies that he intended to convince anyone that Shakespeare was not the real author of his works. "It would grieve me to know that any one could think so injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me," he writes mockingly. "Would I be so soft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly seventy-four years?" We get our beliefs at second hand, he explains, "we reason none of them out for ourselves. It is the way we are made." Twain has set a trapÑan elaborate joke at the expense of what he scornfully refers to as the "Reasoning Race." He is satirizing the need to win an argument when it is virtually impossible to convince anyone to change sides in almost any debate. His excessive rhetoric of attack is obviously absurdÑcalling the other side "thugs," for exampleÑyet it has been taken at face value.

On the Authorship Controversy is about how a historical deception has survived as a tradition for nearly 400 years, despite numerous challenges. I am referring to the “tradition” that the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon were actually written by him, despite no evidence of schooling or access to libraries, lack of recognition by other playwrights when he died, and much more. The editors of the definitive decennial edition of his works, together with virtually all other scholars of English Literature, have declared that this rural fellow is the true author. This book offers irrefutable mathematical evidence that Christopher Marlowe -- graduate of Cambridge University, the inventor of iambic pentameter, and the author of seven important plays before “Shakespeare” had ever been heard of -- did not die in late May 1593, as officially reported by the Queen’s Coroner. How do we know that Marlowe was alive and the author of the sonnets? He announced his authorship in ciphers that are clear and unmistakable once you find the key. The key was found by an independent scholar named Peter Bull in 2005. He self-published his findings because the mainstream publishers were not interested, and very few people bothered to read his work. I did, and I have now undertaken to make his discovery a little more accessible to the general reader.

Who really wrote the Shakespeare plays? This important literary and cultural controversy is livelier and more widely discussed than ever before. Here, nine leading experts offer their version of who wrote the plays. In new essays especially written for this book nine leading 'Shakespearean' authors present their version of the man.

This transhistorical, international and interdisciplinary work will be of interest to students, theater professionals and Shakespeare scholars.

The debate over the true author of the Shakespeare canon has raged for centuries. Astonishingly little evidence supports the traditional belief that Will Shakespeare, the actor and businessman from Stratford-upon-Avon, was the author. Legendary figures such as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud have all expressed grave doubts that an uneducated man who apparently owned no books and never left England wrote plays and poems that consistently reflect a learned and well-traveled insider's perspective on royal courts and the ancient feudal nobility. Recent scholarship has turned to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford-an Elizabethan court playwright known to have written in secret and who had ample means, motive and opportunity to in fact have assumed the "Shakespeare" disguise. "Shakespeare" by Another Name is the literary biography of Edward de Vere as "Shakespeare." This groundbreaking book tells the story of de Vere's action-packed life-as Renaissance man, spendthrift, courtier, wit, student, scoundrel, patron, military adventurer, and, above all, prolific ghostwriter-finding in it the background material for all of The Bard's works. Biographer Mark Anderson incorporates a wealth of new evidence, including de Vere's personal copy of the Bible (in which de Vere underlines scores of passages that are also prominent Shakespearean biblical references).