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The years in which Shakespeare wrote were among the most exciting in English history. The discovery, translation, and printing of Greek and Roman classics were making available a set of works that interacted with Christian texts and beliefs.

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William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about Shakespeare's life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don't know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple's relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare's activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a "Shake-scene." The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare's earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3, which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis. The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed the King's Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature-clearly a selling point-on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen, which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616-the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare's health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King's Men.

Timeline

View a timeline of Shakespeare's life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented.
View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Shakespeare leave his wife his "second best bed"?

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, "Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture" (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the "second best" was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare's son die of?

We don't really know how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare's grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE:
BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William's father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare's funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare's line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Shakespeare's life | Folger Shakespeare Library

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Learn about Shakespeare's life and family: birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, work in London theaters, and death.

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The first playhouse built since the roman times was located in London , while Shakespeare was 12 year old. This theater was used for many years until a project for a bigger theater was introduced called the globe. After a few years it burned down. It was quickly rebuilt on the same site.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

In any of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female; acting in Renaissance England was an exclusively male profession. Audiences had their favorite performers, looked forward to hearing music with the productions, and relished the luxurious costumes of the leading characters. The stage itself was relatively bare. For the most part, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.

On This Page: Playhouses and the Globe | Theaters and Palaces | Audience Experiences | Actors, Costumes, and Staging | Stage and Screen after Shakespeare

In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford-upon-Avon, James Burbage built the Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered "yard" surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. Spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels; those with the cheapest tickets simply stood for the length of the plays.

Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was one of several to perform at the Theatre, appearing there by about 1594. A few years later, the Burbages lost their lease on the Theatre site and began construction of a new, larger playhouse, the Globe, just south of the Thames. To pay for it, they shared the lease with the five partners (called actor-sharers) in the Lord Chamberlain's company, including Shakespeare.

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's . A new, second Globe was quickly built on the same site, opening in 1614.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

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William was the eldest in his family although he did have two older sisters that died at infancy. His father was an accomplished leather man worker. He attended Stafford grammar school which kick started his fascination with play writing.

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Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century family scene at the top of this page.

Primary sources: Shakespeare Documented
Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare's life. This online exhibition of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

On This Page: Birth and Childhood | Marriage and Children | London Theater | Final Years

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

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An overview of Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Library, including his birth and childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon, his marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, his work in the London theaters, and his final years before his death in 1616.

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People could pay for better seats for Shakespeare play. He would charge you more for better seats if you were an important person, you would get some of the best seats there.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

In any of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female; acting in Renaissance England was an exclusively male profession. Audiences had their favorite performers, looked forward to hearing music with the productions, and relished the luxurious costumes of the leading characters. The stage itself was relatively bare. For the most part, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.

On This Page: Playhouses and the Globe | Theaters and Palaces | Audience Experiences | Actors, Costumes, and Staging | Stage and Screen after Shakespeare

In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford-upon-Avon, James Burbage built the Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered "yard" surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. Spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels; those with the cheapest tickets simply stood for the length of the plays.

Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was one of several to perform at the Theatre, appearing there by about 1594. A few years later, the Burbages lost their lease on the Theatre site and began construction of a new, larger playhouse, the Globe, just south of the Thames. To pay for it, they shared the lease with the five partners (called actor-sharers) in the Lord Chamberlain's company, including Shakespeare.

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's . A new, second Globe was quickly built on the same site, opening in 1614.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

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The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that William Shakespeare did not create the work attributed to him.His authorship was first questioned in the mid 19th century, when everyone knew about him.

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Dedicated to the Proposition that Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare

Contents
Many books and articles have been written arguing that someone other than William Shakespeare, the glover's son from Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote the plays and poems published under his name. There exist sincere and intelligent people who believe there is strong evidence that Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, was the author of these plays and poems. Yet professional Shakespeare scholars -- those whose job it is to study, write, and teach about Shakespeare -- generally find Oxfordian claims to be groundless, often not even worth discussing.
Why is this? Oxfordians claim that these scholars are blinded to the evidence by a vested self-interest in preserving the authorship of "the Stratford Man," and some more extreme Oxfordians claim that there is an active conspiracy among orthodox scholars to suppress pro-Oxford evidence and keep it from the attention of the general public. The truth, however, is far more prosaic. Oxfordians are not taken seriously by the Shakespeare establishment because (with few exceptions) they do not follow basic standards of scholarship, and the "evidence" they present for their fantastic scenarios is either distorted, taken out of context, or flat-out false.

This web site is for the intelligent nonspecialist who doesn't know what to make of these challenges to Shakespeare's authorship. Oxfordian books can be deceptively convincing to a reader who is unaware of the relevant historical background and unused to the rhetorical tricks used by Oxfordians. Our aim is to provide context where needed, expose misinformation passed off by Oxfordians as fact, and in general show the nonspecialist reader why professional Shakespeare scholars have so little regard for Oxfordian claims. We know from experience that we are not likely to convince any Oxfordians to change their views, but we hope that other readers will find something of value here. We will be updating and adding new material as time permits, and we welcome any comments or suggestions.
Antistratfordians try to seduce their readers into believing that there is some sort of "mystery" about the authorship of Shakespeare's works. They often assert that nothing (or at most very little) connects William Shakespeare of Stratford to the works of William Shakespeare the author, or that the evidence which exists is "circumstantial" and subject to some doubt. These are astounding misrepresentations that bear little resemblance to reality. Indeed, abundant evidence testifies to the fact that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works published under his name, and this evidence is as extensive and direct as the evidence for virtually any of Shakespeare's contemporaries. In their essay How We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts, Tom Reedy and David Kathman summarize the extensive web of evidence that identifies William Shakespeare of Stratford as the man who wrote the works of William Shakespeare.
Oxfraud When the Shakespeare Authorship page began in 1996, it was the only site on the Internet dedicated to countering claims that someone other than William Shakespeare wrote the lion's share of the works professional literary historians have always assigned to Shakespeare. We have more company now (as you can see from the sites linked in ourBardlinks area below), and we'd like to direct your attention in particular to Oxfraud. It's a newer site devoted to rebutting Oxfordians, though there's plenty of good material there on the Shakespeare authorship more generally. This includes

Tom Veal's "Stromata Blog" Another excellent site for those interested in the authorship question is Tom Veal's blog, Stromata, which contains some of the best recent commentary on the authorship of Shakespeare's works.

Tom responds to The Truth Will Out by Brenda James and William D. Rubinstein, a book claiming that Sir Henry Neville really wrote Shakespeare's works.

Tom looks critically at Roger Stritmatter's Ph.D. dissertation in comparative literature, which took as its starting point the assumption that the Earl of Oxford really wrote Shakespeare's works.

Tom replies to Michael Brame and Galina Popova, who in Shakespeare's Fingerprints claimed that 17th Earl of Oxford wrote not only Shakespeare's works but also just about everything else written in the last half of the 16th Century.

The Times published a strongly pro-Oxfordian piece on February 10, 2002, that fell far short of the standards we expect from the "paper of record." See our response to the Times. In April 1999,Harper's magazine published a group of ten essays collectively entitled"The Ghost of Shakespeare." Five of the essays were by Oxfordians, arguing that the Earl of Oxford wrote the works of Shakespeare, while five were by Shakespeare scholars arguing that William Shakespeare was the author. David Kathman promptly wrote a letter toHarper's, pointing out some of the many factual errors and distortions in the five Oxfordian articles and outlining the major reasons why Shakespeare scholars do not take Oxfordians seriously.Harper's elected not to publish the letter, instead publishing a group of short and superficial responses which failed to address the main issues. However, we're posting David Kathman's letterhere in order to provide a concise summary of the serious problems with Oxfordian arguments. The following essays were posted to the newsgroup humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare, and are presented here in edited form. The original impetus for most of these essays was an Oxfordian article by Mark Anderson entitled "Shake-speare's Good Book," posted to the newsgroup by Mr. Anderson under the nom de net "E of O." (Interested readers can see this article athttp://www.everreader.com/bible.htm --- but be sure to return here!) I posted a quickinitial response to the article, to which Mr. Anderson replied with a further posting in which he made several more points, the substance of which should be clear from my responses. I wrote and posted the next eight essays, each of which deals with a specific Oxfordian claim, in response to both the initial posting and the follow-up. They are informal in tone, but I tried to make them as accurate and factual as possible. The next two essays were written later, as parts of longer essays in progress on Shakespeare's death and education. The last essay was written in response to Mark Alexander, one of the Oxfordian regulars on the newsgroup. Mark has always been a highly articulate and intelligent opponent, and he has often forced me to think through my own positions more thoroughly than I would otherwise have done. In this post, I address some of the broader issues involved in the Shakespeare authorship debate, and try to articulate the major reasons why I find the Oxfordian approach fundamentally flawed. The most obvious evidence that William Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him is that everyone at the time said he did: he was often praised in writing as a poet and playwright, he was named as the author of many of the works while he was alive, and seven years after his death the First Folio explicitly attributed the rest of the works to him. Oxfordians try to account for this evidence by claiming that the man from Stratford was actually "William Shaksper" (or "Shakspere"), a man whose name was spelled and pronounced differently from that of the great poet "William Shakespeare," and that nobody at the time would have thought to confuse the two. Needless to say, such claims bear little resemblance to reality. To see just how badly Oxfordians have misrepresented the name issue, read David Kathman's essay onthe spelling and pronunciation of Shakespeare's name, accompanied by the complete lists (in original spelling) of all contemporarynon-literary references and literary references to William Shakespeare. Two assumptions are almost universally held by antistratfordians: the author of Shakespeare's plays must have been a well-educated aristocrat, and William Shakespeare of Stratford could not possibly have had the education or social connections to have been that author. To those who are familiar with Elizabethan society in general, and with William Shakespeare's life in particular, neither of these assumptions comes close to holding water. In this section we present two pairs of articles, the first pair dealing with the aristocrat/class issue, the second dealing with the education issue.Were Shakespeare's Plays Written by an Aristocrat? In this essay based on a series of posts from the humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare newsgroup, David Kathman addresses the common Oxfordian assumption that the author of Shakespeare's plays must have been an aristocrat who was intimate with the corridors of power. He points out that nobody in Shakespeare's day or for centuries afterward thought that the plays displayed an accurate knowledge of royal courts (in fact, the opposite was the case), and that modern social historians familiar with 16th-century court life have come to a similar conclusion.Shakespeare's Stratford Friends Oxfordians mercilessly attack the character and background of William Shakespeare, depicting him as an "unlettered boob" and Stratford as a densely ignorant backwater bereft of any culture. As usual, the Oxfordians are guilty of twisting facts and ignoring any evidence that they don't like. David Kathman's essay illustrates that Shakespeare's closest friends in Stratford were actually a rather cultured lot, and that their hometown bore little resemblance to the cesspool depicted by Oxfordians.
Shakespeare's Knowledge of Italy, the Classics, and the Law
Paired with Oxfordians' insistence that the author of Shakespeare's plays must have been an aristocrat is their insistence that he must have had lots of formal education. As usual, though, the antistratfordians are badly mistaken in some key elements of their arguments. InShakespeare's Knowledge of Italy, the Classics, and the Law, David Kathman focuses on three areas where antistratfordians have often claimed that the plays exhibit knowledge beyond the ability of William Shakespeare of Stratford: Italy, the classics, and law. In each case, he responds directly to claims by Oxfordians, showing that they have greatly overestimated the extent of Shakespeare's knowledge and greatly underestimated the resources available to any intelligent Elizabethan who wished to learn about virtually any subject.
Shakespeare and Richard Field
Since William Shakespeare did not have much formal education, he must have been a voracious reader on many subjects. Oxfordians like to ridicule this very reasonable inference; where, they ask, could Shakespeare have gotten the books he would have had to read? But in fact, Shakespeare was particularly well-positioned in this regard. Richard Field, who grew up down the street from Shakespeare and in very similar circumstances, became one of the leading publishers and booksellers in London. More importantly, he published many of the works his townsman Shakespeare relied on most heavily in composing his plays. Find out more about the connections between these celebrated sons of Stratford in David Kathman'sShakespeare and Richard Field.
Dating the Works
Some Oxfordians are not satisfied with claiming that Shakespeare's works could have been written before Oxford's death in 1604; they try to turn the tables and argue that the author of Shakespeare's works was actually dead many years before William Shakespeare's death in 1616. One of their favorite pieces of "evidence" for such a scenario is William Barksted's poemMirrha, which appears to refer to Shakespeare in the past tense. Since Barksted's poem was published in 1607 -- after Oxford's death but before Shakespeare's -- some Oxfordians regard it as a prime piece of evidence for their theory. The problem with such an argument is that it completely ignores the context of Barksted's use of the past tense, both within the poem as a whole and in comparison with other contemporary praise of living poets. When looked at in this context, there is nothing at all unusual about Barksted's usage. Learn more about Barksted,Mirrha, and the meaning of the past tense in Terry Ross and David Kathman's essay Barksted and Shakespeare. The biggest stumbling block for the idea that Edward de Vere could have written Shakespeare's plays is the fact that he died in 1604, before about a third of the plays were written, according to the standard chronology. Oxfordians reply by claiming that this chronology is mistaken, and that the plays were actually written much earlier than orthodox scholarship supposes. Such a wholesale redating raises a host of questions and ignores strong evidence that several of the later plays, at least, were written well after 1604. Don't take our word for it, though: read David Kathman's essay ondating The Tempest, which presents the remarkably extensive evidence that Shakespeare, in writing this play, was heavily influenced by written accounts of events in Bermuda that happened in 1609-10, at least five years after Oxford's death. One of the most common features of antistratfordian arguments is a claim that the death of William Shakespeare of Stratford went unnoticed in England, in supposed contrast to other prominent men of letters. But this Oxfordian claim, like so many others, is based on a distortion of the facts combined with an ignorance of the necessary context. Contrary to Oxfordian assertions, only socially prominent people such as noblemen were the subject of printed eulogies soon after they died; eulogies for poets and playwrights generally remained in manuscript, often for decades. InShakespeare's Eulogies, David Kathman compares Shakespeare with the most prominent playwrights and poets of the day, and concludes that William Shakespeare was actually the best-memorialized English playwright until Ben Jonson more than 20 years later.

Images of Shakespeare
There are only two portraits of Shakespeare which we can reasonably take as authentic: the monument in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church, and the engraving by Martin Droeshout on the title page of the 1623 First Folio. Antistratfordians have seen all kinds of shady doings and hidden meanings in these portraits, as well as in other "Shakespeare" portraits with less claim to authenticity. Yet these claims, like so much other antistratfordian rhetoric, turn out to be founded on ignorance, misunderstanding, and pure conjecture. Shortly after Shakespeare's death, a monument was erected to his memory in his home town of Stratford. However, many Oxfordians believe that the monument originally depicted Shakespeare holding a sack, and that it was subsequently altered to depict him as a writer. Their basis for thinking this is an engraving of the monument which appeared in William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire in 1656, and which depicts a monument significantly different from what we see today; Charlton Ogburn writes inThe Mysterious William Shakespeare that "there seems scant room for doubt that the subject of the original sculpture was not a literary figure but a dealer in bagged commodities" (p. 213). However, the evidence is overwhelmingly against the Oxfordian scenario. First, read M. H. Spielmann's detailed discussion of the monument, and his demonstrations of the many errors and inconsistencies to be found in seventeenth-century engravings. Then read David Kathman's discussion of 17th-century references to the monument, which shows that it was always seen as representing a famous poet and not a grain dealer. We have also put up illustrations of both the Stratford monument and Dugdale's rendition.
The Droeshout Engraving: Why It's Not Queen Elizabeth
Antistratfordians since the mid-1800s have found something fishy about the famous Droeshout engraving that graces the title page of the First Folio. In 1995, Lillian Schwartz tried to put a scientific gloss on such speculations when she wrote an article for Scientific American which used computer modelling to suggest that the Droeshout portrait is actually of Queen Elizabeth. But as Terry Ross shows in this article, Schwartz's methods left a lot to be desired, and although her very tentative conclusions have been accepted as gospel by eager antistratfordians, a fresh look shows just how different Shakespeare and Elizabeth were.
More than half a century before Schwartz, Oxfordian Charles Wisner Barrell wrote another article for Scientific American, in which he attempted to use X-rays to show that the so-called "Ashbourne Portrait," often taken to be of Shakespeare, is actually a painted-over portrait of the Earl of Oxford. Yet even though Barrell's results were conclusively debunked more than 20 years ago, they're still accepted uncritically by many antistratfordians. Read David Kathman's briefarticle for the full story. Oxfordians claim that Edward de Vere could not have been named as the author of Shakespeare's works because doing so would have violated the Elizabethan social code, which prohibited aristocrats from having works published under their own names. However, as Steven May points out in hisessay, "the alleged code, handy and time-honored as it has become, does not square with the evidence." As May demonstrates, "Tudor aristocrats published regularly." The "stigma of print" is a myth. May does concede that there was for a time a "stigma of verse" among the early Tudor aristocrats, "but even this inhibition dissolved during the reign of Elizabeth until anyone, of whatever exalted standing in society, might issue a sonnet or play without fear of losing status." This essay first appeared inRenaissance Papers. Oxfordians find it suspicious that the original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays have not survived. They darkly hint that this is evidence of a coverup, and have even gone so far as to x-ray the Shakespeare monument in Stratford because of a suspicion that the manuscripts may have been hidden inside. (They weren't.) But there is nothing the slightest bit suspicious about the absence of Shakespeare's manuscripts, since virtually no playhouse manuscripts from that era have survived at all. ReadThe Survival of Manuscripts by Giles Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton (taken from their 1965 bookElizabethan Handwriting) for the opinion of two scholars who spent decades examining documents from Shakespeare's era. Even though the original manuscripts of Shakespeare's canonical plays have not survived, there is strong evidence that three pages of the manuscript playSir Thomas More are in Shakespeare's hand. This evidence, which cuts across handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, imagery, and more, has persuaded many Shakespeare scholars, but is generally ignored or ridiculed by antistratfordians because accepting it would be a crippling blow for their theories. Read David Kathman'ssummary of the evidence for Shakespeare's hand and judge for yourself. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a recognized poet in his own day, and Oxfordians make the most of this fact in their attempts to prove that he actually wrote the works of Shakespeare. However, most Oxfordian work in this area involves highly selective use of evidence, and often reveals a distressing lack of knowledge about Elizabethan poetry in general. In this section we critically examine Oxford's surviving poetry and the conclusions Oxfordians have tried to draw from it. Oxford was praised in print as a poet and playwright when he was alive, a fact which Oxfordians understandably try to use to their advantage. In doing so, though, they quote this praise selectively and present it out of context, leading unwary readers to a greatly inflated view of Oxford's reputation as a poet. Terry Ross'sessay looks at Oxford's reputation in the actual context of the times, and shows that while Oxford's work had its admirers, nobody seems to have considered him a great poet or playwright. If Oxford did indeed write the works of Shakespeare, why did he never acknowledge them? Oxfordians claim that the works contain dangerous political allegories, and that Oxford could not safely allow them to appear under his own name. Hence, he used the name "Shakespeare." To support this claim, Oxfordians cite George Puttenham's 1589 book,The Arte of English Poesie. However, a close examination of Puttenham's work shows that Oxfordians have relied on doctored evidence, and that Puttenham's actual words contradict the Oxfordian claim. Find out for yourselfWhat Puttenham Really Said About Oxford, and why it matters. This case study of the Oxfordian misuse of evidence was written by Terry Ross; it appeared on the humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare newsgroup, and has been revised for this forum. Parts of the essay criticize the PBSFrontline program "The Shakespeare Mystery," andFrontline has issued a response to which Terry Ross has replied. We have made available the texts of theResponse from Frontline -- and a Reply. We have also made the relevant portions of Puttenham'sArte of English Poesie available. Oxfordians have consistently defended the quality of Oxford's poetry, arguing that it is not inconsistent with his later having written the Shakespeare canon. Joseph Sobran has recently gone further, claiming that the verbal parallels he has found constitute proof that the poetry of Oxford and Shakespeare were written by the same person. InShakespeare, Oxford, and Verbal Parallels, David Kathman examines Sobran's claim and finds it seriously defective, reflecting ignorance of both attribution studies and Elizabethan poetry. The Shakespeare Clinic, under the direction of Ward Elliott and Robert Valenza of Claremont-McKenna College in California, was a project which compared Shakespeare's poetry with the work of other contemporary poets by means of various objective tests. The goal was to see if any of the claimants' poetry matched the Bard's, and none did; furthermore, the Earl of Oxford was one of the poorest matches for Shakespeare out of all the poets tested. Read Elliott and Valenza'sarticle on Oxford's candidacy, originally published inNotes and Queries. Oxfordians from J. Thomas Looney onward have noted that some of the verse forms used by Oxford were also used by Shakespeare, and they have seized upon this coincidence as support for their theories. InThe Verse Forms of Shakespeare and Oxford, Terry Ross looks at this issue in detail and shows how badly Oxfordians have distorted the facts in an attempt to exaggerate Oxford's similarity to Shakespeare and his role in the history of English poetry. Belief in the Oxfordian story that Shakespeare's works were written not by Shakespeare but by the seventeenth Earl of Oxford requires not merely suspending the rules of evidence that would normally be used to establish the authorship of a body of work, but also accepting a set of Oxfordian myths -- tales that are presented as fact but that research shows are simply not true. Some of these myths have been repeated and handed down from Oxfordian to Oxfordian for decades, without any attempt being made to verify them. Here are three essays, each exposing an Oxfordian myth and demonstrating that the Oxfordian faith in them has been misplaced. Shakespeare referred toVenus and Adonis as the "first heir of my invention." Many antistratfordians have been puzzled by the phrase, and have suggested that by "invention," the author must have meant "pseudonym"; and thus arose the myth that the phrase means something like "the first product published under my assumed name." The phrase would not have puzzled Shakespeare's contemporaries, however, as Terry Ross points out in hisessay, since they were familiar with the contemporary habit of referring to works as one's children. Moreover, contemporary writers never used "invention" to mean "pseudonym"; the word referred to the writer's wit or imagination. Far from suggesting the use of a pseudonym, Shakespeare's use of the phrase "first heir of my invention" tells us that he wroteVenus and Adonis by himself and as himself. In John Benson's 1640 edition of Shakespeare'sPoems, question marks appear in places where one would expect exclamation points. From this, Oxfordians have decided that Benson must not have thought that Shakespeare was really Shakespeare. Terry Ross haslooked at the evidence, however, and shows that in Benson's time question marks were often used as exclamation points. Moreover, Benson nowhere expresses any doubt that the author of the poems was the William Shakespeare whose plays were collected in the First Folio and who died in April of 1616. For fifty years Oxfordians have contended that strong evidence that the character Polonius inHamlet was based on Lord Burghley is that Burghley's nickname was "Polus." In this essay Terry Ross traces the "Polus" myth to its sources and reveals that it is absolutely without foundation. He also outlines a fifty year history of Oxfordians parroting and even embellishing the myth without their ever checking to see whether it was true. On October 28, 2011, the movieAnonymous opened; it flopped at the box office, but there was considerable discussion of the film at the time. Here isDavid Kathman's review. Spoiler alert: William Shakespeare is a character in the movie, but the central character is Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, who is, among other things, the son of Queen Elizabeth, the lover of the same Queen Elizabeth (some years later), and the real author of the works commonly attributed to William Shakespeare. The film is NOT meant to be a comedy. There is, of course, no reason to credit the earl with even one line of any work that has traditionally been attributed to William Shakespeare (for more information about this matter, please see the essays on this site), but many entertaining movies have been based on historically dubious material. The official blog for the movie offers links to the Shakespeare authorship page, so it's only fair that we repay the favor. Here are a few links related to the film:

The New York Times covers the story --

In addition to previews, trailers, commercials, press kits, blogs, and interviews, the film is also being promoted for its educational value. We are not making this up. An outfit called "Youth Marketing International" has prepared study guides for the movie that the producers hope will be used for high school and college courses. There is also a file explaining how seeing the movie and performing some classroom exercises can meet some educational standards. For a blogospherical discussion of the study guides, seeAttention Educators: Have We All Been Played?

There will be more reviews when the movie goes into general release, but a showing at the Toronto Film Festicval prompted this blog post by Holger Syme to which the screenwriter John Orloff responded.

At Salon, Laura Miller's review asks the question, Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?

Simon Shama discussed the film for Newsweek: The Shakespeare Shakedown

At Slate, Ron Rosenbaum lists 10 Things I Hate About Anonymous

A new site that may be of more lasting interest is " 60 Minutes with Shakespeare," which was put up by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. "60 Minutes" comprises brief answers to 60 questions about Shakespeare and the authorship of his works; among the 60 are Roland Emmerich, James Shapiro, and our own David Kathman. You'll have to register to see the page, but registration is free and painless. You can also find Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells's e-bookShakespeare Bites Back as well as remarks aboutAnonymous by Alan Nelson. Irvin Leigh Matus'sShakespeare, In Fact (Continuum, 1994) is a good book-length examination of the authorship question, containing thorough demolitions of many Oxfordian claims. Even if you've read the book, check out Thomas A. Pendleton'sreview, which originally appeared inThe Shakespeare Newsletter. Not only does Pendleton cogently summarize Matus's arguments, he also adds an excellent discussion of the vast scope of the conspiracy that would have been necessary to conceal Oxford's authorship of the Shakespeare plays. In 1953, Dorothy Ogburn and Charlton Ogburn Sr. publishedThis Star of England, a 1300-page Oxfordian tome which was a precursor to their son Charlton Jr.'sThe Mysterious William Shakespeare thirty years later. Giles Dawson'sreview of this book forShakespeare Quarterly provides an excellent summary of the shoddy scholarship and questionable methods which typify so much Oxfordian work. Charlton Ogburn's bookThe Mysterious William Shakespeare is generally considered the most thorough exposition of the Oxfordian case; it is certainly one of the most passionately argued. However, Ogburn has a distressing tendency to brush aside facts which he finds inconvenient, and to invent or distort other "facts" to suit his purpose; he employs a blatant double standard in evaluating evidence which makes his thesis unfalsifiable. David Kathman's articleWhy I'm Not an Oxfordian, which originally appeared inThe Elizabethan Review, looks in detail at some of the many problems with Ogburn's book and explains why academic Shakespeareans do not take Ogburn and his Oxfordian brethren seriously. In 1997, Joseph Sobran's bookAlias Shakespeare introduced many newcomers to the Shakespeare authorship question. Written in an accessible style without the bitterness that characterizes some Oxfordian writings, Sobran's book presented a superficially plausible case for Oxford's authorship of Shakespeare. Unfortunately, beneath the glossy surface lies a mass of distortions, half-truths, and contradictions which renders Sobran's book no better as a historical account than other Oxfordian works. David Kathman has written a number ofresponses to reader queries which discuss some of the major problems with Sobran's book. John Michell'sWho Wrote Shakespeare? marks a rebirth of the "groupist" view of Shakespearean authorship. Michell thinks that just about everybody ever proposed as a candidate for authorship had his oar in the Avon. Bob Grumman'sreview describes Michell's approach, exposes his loose way with the evidence, and corrects several common antistratfordian misreadings. In thisessay, excerpted from a talk delivered at the Library of Congress, Irvin Matus, the author ofShakespeare IN FACT, discusses the common Oxfordian claim thatHamlet is actually a thinly veiled autobiography of Edward de Vere. Matus points out the weaknesses of the Oxfordian case, and also argues that the Oxfordian approach to the play seeks to diminish its power as a work of art, reducing a profound exploration of the deepest issues that concern us as people to a petty expression of pique. Until the 1920s, Francis Bacon was the favorite candidate of those who doubted that Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems that have been attributed to him. The Oxford faction is today the more numerous, but there are still Baconians around. InThe Code that Failed, Terry Ross examines the methods of one Baconian, Penn Leary, who claims that he has found cryptographical proof that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. We have also made availablePenn Leary's reply to the piece, as well as Hiawatha's Cryptographing, Terry Ross's response to him. In addition we have put up the texts of someUNIX and Perl scripts that were used to test Leary's methods. The 1612Funeral Elegy by "W.S." has been in the news in recent years, as scholars and other interested readers argued whether it had been written by William Shakespeare; the current scholarly consensus is that the poem was written by John Ford. The case for Shakespeare's authorship was made in Donald Foster's 1989 bookElegy by W.S., and in subsequent articles by Foster, Richard Abrams, and others. Time and space do not allow us to present the arguments over the poem's authorship here but we can provide the text of theFuneral Elegy itself. There was spirited debate over the elegy's authorship on the electronic Shakespeare conferenceSHAKSPER, and on the newsgroup humanities.lit.authors.Shakespeare. Much of the new evidence which convinced Foster that the Elegy was Shakespeare's comes from his lexical database SHAXICON. He wrote anarticle for the Summer 1995Shakespeare Newsletter, which, while it did not specifically deal with the Elegy evidence, described the workings of SHAXICON in some detail. Also, read David Kathman's1996 post to the humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare newsgroup, responding to early Oxfordian criticisms and clearing up some common misunderstandings about Foster's work on the Elegy, as well as a2002 post on the matter.
A number of candidates were proposed as the real author of the Funeral Elegy, including George Chapman, an unnamed member of "a stable of elegy writers", a country parson, Simon Wastell, Sir William Strode, William Sclater, and the 17th Earl of Oxford. John Ford was first suggested in 1996 by Richard J. Kennedy on Shaksper, but it was not until 2002 that the case for Ford was generally considered to be stronger than the case for Shakespeare.

The principal arguments in favor of John Ford's authorship may be found in

Ward Elliott and Robert Valenza. "Smoking Guns, Silver Bullets: Could John Ford Have Written the Funeral Elegy?" Literary and Linguistic Computing 16:205-32 [2001].

Gilles D. Monsarrat "A Funeral Elegy: Ford, W.S., and Shakespeare" inThe Review of English Studies 53:186-203 [May 2002]. Here isan abstract of Monsarrat's essay.

Brian Vickers, Counterfeiting Shakespeare: Evidence, Authorship and John Ford's "Funerall Elegye". Here is the publisher's description of the book.

After Monsarrat's essay appeared, Foster and Abrams conceded that the case for Ford was now stronger than the case for Shakespeare.
Ward E.Y. Elliott and Robert J. Valenza have put their own account of the matter online: "So Much Hardball, So Little of it Over the Plate: Conclusions from our 'Debate' with Donald Foster."

Shakespeare's Works

David Kathman's Biographical Index of English Drama Before 1660 is a draft list of all people known to have been involved with theater in England between 1558 and 1642.

Collections of Shakespeare Links
Find more links to material by and about Shakespeare (and a great many other writers of the English Renaisance and 17th Century) at the Voice of the Shuttle

Since 1990, scholars and common readers have discussed the works and life of Shakespeare on the SHAKSPER mailing list, which is edited by Hardy M. Cook.

Oxford's Writings

Alan Nelson has put up a great deal of information about the 17th earl of Oxford including transcriptions of his letters and memoranda, an analysis of his spelling habits, and information about his trip to Italy. (Of related interest is ourlist of the annotations in Oxford's Bible.) In addition, Nelson has also made available new evidence of the relationship between Shakespeare andSir George Buc, the Master of Revels from 1610 to 1622.

Versions of Poems by Oxford (and others) were inexpertly edited by J. Thomas Looney.Caveat lector.

General Discussions of Authorship

A fine survey is provided by the Wikipedia article Shakespeare authorship question.

Links to websites of the candidates may be found on the Authorship Debates page of J. M. Pressley's Shakespeare Resource Center

John George Robertson's 1911 essay "The Shakespeare-Bacon Theory" appeared in theEncyclopedia Britannica and has been put online by TheatreHistory.com

Ward Elliott tells the history of The Shakespeare Clinic, a project that used stylometric methods to investigate the authorship of Shakespeare's works.

Using stylometrics, Ward Elliott and Robert Valenza calculate the odds against Oxford's having written Shakespeare in Oxford by the Numbers

In Two Tough Nuts to Crack, Elliott and Valenza test whether their methods support the view that Shakespeare contributed to Sir Thomas More and Edward III.

Irvin Leigh Matus 's site WillyShakes.com contains several essays on the authorship of Shakespeare's works.

Steven Dutch, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, believes that antistratfordianism is at best a Pseudoscience.

Clark Holloway's Shakespeare page includes a look atThe Authorship "Problem"

James Boyle blends law and literature in The Search for an Author: Shakespeare and the Framers

Diana Price argues in her new book Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography that he was not a writer.

The Wikipedia includes an entry on Shakespearean authorship

Alan Haley describes a moot court Authorship Debate between supporters of Shakespeare and of Oxford.

Brad Strickland asks Who Wrote Shakespeare?, and answers, "Shakespeare did."

Amanda J. Crawford reviews Irvin Matus's Shakespeare, IN FACT

Authorship is also a popular topic on the newsgroup humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare.

After the release of Shakespeare in Love, the authorship of Shakespeare's works became a topic atMr. Cranky

The topic sometimes arises on a German Shakespeare Forum

Authorship issues are often discussed in The Elizabethan Review, a twice-yearly journal edited by Gary Goldstein.

The Shakespeare Authorship Rountable does not endorse any alternative candidate -- but they're pretty sure the author was someone other than Shakespeare.

Ian Chadwick goes In Search of the Real Bard

Meg Greene Malvasi asks, Did He or Didn't He? at the History for Children site.

Polly Rance reviews John Michell's Who Wrote Shakespeare?

. . . as does Jim Loy on his book review page.

Nigel Davies

From Austria, Patricia Hoda asks Wer war Shakespeare?

T. L. Hubeart looks briefly at The Shakespeare Authorship Question

A site for schools in Urbana, Ohio, asks Who Wrote Shakespeare?

From Richard Stockton College, a brief listing of points for and against Shakespeare's authorship of his works.

Libby Maia asks, Were There Two Shakespeares?

Barbara Rosson Davis describes her screenplay about the authorship of Shakespeare's works.

Oxford

The founding tract of Oxfordianism is J. Thomas Looney's 'Shakespeare' Identified in Edward de Vere the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford.

The Shakespeare Oxford Society Home Page is the principal Oxfordian web site.

The Oxfordian Shakespeare Fellowship site includes essays from the group's magazine Shakespeare Matters.

English Oxfordians have the de Vere Society.

Mark Alexander's Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook, an Oxfordian survey of materials related to Shakespeare and Oxford.

Nina Green's Oxford Authorship Site credits Edward de Vere with being not merely himself and Shakespeare but also Martin Marprelate, Thomas Nashe, and Robert Greene.

The Oxfordian musings of Randall Barron total 31 brief chapters (so far).

The Oxfordian case was promoted by the PBS Frontline program,"The Shakespeare Mystery."

In 1991, the Oxfordian case was debated in The Atlantic Monthly

In 1999, the Oxfordian case was debated in Harper's magazine.

A number of pieces by the late Oxfordian Charlton Ogburn Jr. are available online:
The Man Shakespeare Was Not | Shakespeare's Self-Portrait |Interview with Charlton Ogburn |Shakespeare and the Fair Youth

Joseph Sobran sprinkles his Oxfordian writings with laments that he doesn't get enough respect from Shakespearean scholars:
The Problem of the Funeral Elegy |Bible holds proof of Shakespeare's identity |Shakespeare's Disgrace |The Mystery of Emaricdulfe |David Kathman and the "Historical Record" |The Bard�s Orphans

Sobran's Oxfordian tract Alias Shakespeare has been reviewed by Jeffrey Gantz

Favorable comments about Sobran's book by Kathleen van Schaijik led to a lively online discussion.

Richard Whalen's Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon is reviewed byPaul Franssen.

Peter Morton reviews two novels promoting the Oxfordian view and also Denis Baron's De Vere is Shakespeare

Ruth Loyd Miller has republished some of the basic Oxfordian tracts.

David Roper's Shakespeare Story holds that ciphers in Shakespeare's monument point to Oxford as the "real" author of Shakespeare's works.

Robert Brazil has put up OXPIX, a page of "images relevant to the Shakespeare-Oxford debate" as well as chapters from his bookThe True Story of the Shakespeare Publications

Dennis Hirsch thinks The Mystery of Shake-speare's Sonnets goes away if Oxford is assumed to be the real author.

Barbara Van Duyn asks the unmusical question Shakespeare, Earl of Oxford?

Time magazine's Howard Chua-Eoan wonders whether Oxford wasThe Bard's Beard.

Paige Norris ponders The Shakespearean Controversy

The Seattle Times covered a 1997 debate between Joseph Sobran and Alan Nelson. (You may have to register to view this article, but there is no charge to do so).

L. James Hammond offers a summary of the Oxfordian case quarried from Ogburn.

Oxfordian Eric Altschuler thinks Hamlet contains a Cosmic Clue to Bard's Identity, according to Constance Holden.

Volker Multhopp thought Oxford collaborated on the Shakespeare plays with John Lyly; his Small Shakespeare Authorship Page included a response to David Kathman'sDating the Tempest [Note: Multhopp's pages are no longer maintained, but they are available at these links via the Wayback Archive.]

Nina Green has also prepared a response to David Kathman

John Rollett's notion that the dedication to Shakespeare's Sonnets contains Oxfordian cryptograms was discussed inChance News.

Old Arcadia has a pretty (and pretty unreliable) Oxfordian site.

A. C. Challinor is also an Oxfordian-centered groupist. His publisher's website classifies his book The Alternative Shakespeare as fiction.

Oxford was a twig on the deVere Family Tree, though that does not mean he was Shakespeare.

Lazy students might want to peek at this sample Oxfordian term paper.

A Geronimo Reviewer supports Oxford.

Amie Ader sees a case for Oxford in The Great Conspiracy

Joseph Eldredge thinks Oxford may have had Martha's Vineyard in mind as the setting fot The Tempest.

Introduce schoolchildren to Oxfordianism by playing Who Was Shakespeare? A Mock Trial

Nicole Blank, a 9th grader at Willits (California) High School, asks, Is Shakespeare A Fraud?

Oxfordianism is all the rage at California's Carmel Shake-speare Festival, but the local paper isn't convinced.

The Ojai Shakespeare Festival also seems interested in Oxfordianism.

The Edward de Vere Studies Conference is held every April at Concordia University in Portland OR.

Oxfordianism in Italy: was the name "Shakespeare" actually the pseudonimo del poeta e drammaturgo Edward de Vere?

Norma Howe's Blue Avenger Cracks the Code presents the exploits of a teen-aged Oxfordian superhero.

The Oxfordian Stephanie Caruana has written a play to promote her views.

Jerry Fey's Oxfordian fantasy Oxford's Will has been performed by the Colony Theater in Los Angeles.

Francis Bacon

Marlowe

Other Candidates

John Raithel looks into the possibility that the works were penned by William Stanley, the sixth Earl of Derby

Patrick Buckridge puts his money on Sir Edward Dyer.

Would you believe the Earl of Rutland? Ilya Gililov does, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Joanne Ambrose believes Shakespeare's works were written by Edmund Campion.

Was Shakespeare Sicilian? See Antonio Casa's news account of Martino Iuvara's notion (would it surpise anyone to learn that Iuvara himself is Sicilian?). Iuvara's idea was considered newsworthy by theTimes of London.

Peter Zenner thinks somebody named William Pierce was not only Shakespeare but also Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, John Milton and many others.

Henry Neville

Who REALLY wrote the works of Molire? Hint: it wasn't Oxford or Bacon or Marlowe or even Corneille.

Josh McEvilla's remarkable Online Reader of John Cotgrave's English Treasury of Wit and Language Thanks toSeven Wonders for naming the SHAKESPEARE AUTHORSHIP Home Page the Site of the Day on April 23, 1996. This page is managed byDavid Kathman and Terry Ross.
We thank all our visitors, and we invite your comments.

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Many books and articles have been written arguing that someone other than William Shakespeare, the glover's son from Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote the plays and poems published under his name.

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With out this Folio, 1/2 of all of Shakespeare's plays would have been lost. The folio was created 7 years after he died in 1623. The folio was comprised of 36 plays, 18 of them were not already published and possibly would have been lost forever.

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Without the First Folio, half of Shakespeare's plays might have been lost forever. Learn more about this remarkable book, published in 1623.

What is a Shakespeare First Folio?

The 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare is the first printed collection of Shakespeare's plays, published seven years after his death in 1616. Of the 36 plays assembled by his friends and fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell, eighteen were being published for the first time. Learn more about the First Folio and its historical importance.

The Folger's First Folios

The Folger Shakespeare Library has 82 copies of the First Folio, the largest collection in the world. Of an estimated original print run of about 750 copies, only 235 are known to survive.

In 2016, to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, the Folger sent 18 of its First Folios on a tour of the United States. More than half a million people saw this traveling exhibition, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, at public libraries, universities, museums, and other venues in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC. Meet the 18 Folger First Folios from the tour, learn about their history, and read some of the stories from their travels.

Read a First Folio

Printing the First Folio

How was the First Folio made? The Folger has created a teaching tool called DIY First Folio for understanding the printing process. This visually rich narrative of the First Folio's 1623 printing features interactive exercises that allow users to fold and unfold Folio sheets, create play gatherings, and print high-resolution facsimile images of pages from the First Folio. DIY First Folio was created with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More First Folio Resources
How Shakespeare's First Folio Became a Star
Adam Hooks and Daniel De Simone chart the rise of the First Folio-how and when this book became a cultural icon with such a dizzying price tag.
Creating Shakespeare's First Folio
Emma Smith offers an intimate, step-by-step examination of how the First Folio was conceived, how Shakespeare's plays were gathered, how the rights for them were obtained, how the book was laid out, and - most vividly - how it was assembled and printed.
The Millionaire and the Bard
Andrea Mays talks about some of the fascinating financial and personal details of Henry Folger's life, and in particular, how he went about collecting so many First Folios.
A New First Folio Discovery
Eric Rasmussen, who authenticated the discovery of a new First Folio in 2014, shares fascinating stories and observations about one of the world's most iconic rare books.
Inside the Folger Conservation Lab
To celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare in 2016, 18 of the Folger's First Folios toured the United States. Go behind the scenes with the conservators who prepared the books for travel.
Editing Shakespeare
Paul Werstine and Suzanne Gossett talk about editing Shakespeare and why the First Folio is considered such a foundational text.
Portraits of Shakespeare
The Droeshout engraving in the First Folio is considered one of the few authentic portraits of Shakespeare. Katherine Duncan-Jones explains why.
The Book of Will
Lauren Gunderson discusses her play about John Heminges and Henry Condell, their families, and everyone involved in gathering and creating the First Folio.

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Without the First Folio, half of Shakespeare's plays might have been lost forever. Learn more about this remarkable book, published in 1623. The 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare is the first printed collection of Shakespeare's plays, published seven years after his death in 1616.

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When Shakespeare died only half of his plays were published. Later 18 more of his plays were published in his "First Folio". Most of Shakespears plays were in the form of quartos

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When William Shakespeare died in 1616, only about half of his plays had ever been printed, in small one-play editions called quartos. Another 18 plays are known today only because they are included in the 1623 First Folio, the first collected edition of the plays.

In 1709, Nicholas Rowe became the first modern editor of Shakespeare's plays, making the text more accessible through tools such as lists of characters and act and scene divisions. Editors in every age-including the present-have addressed a variety of questions, including how to make sense of conflicting early versions of the plays. Other publishers have taken the text in new directions, from foreign-language editions to graphic novels.

Poems | Early quartos | The First Folio | Later editions | A variety of forms

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When William Shakespeare died in 1616, only about half of his plays had ever been printed, in small one-play editions called quartos. Another 18 plays are known today only because they are included in the 1623 First Folio, the first collected edition of the plays.

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Shakepeare had little to no scenery other than play necessities such as thrones, graves, beds, etc. On top of this, the actors entries and exits were clear, but under stage trapdoors to "ascend from hell" and ceilings to play as "heaven" were used to exaggerate parts in plays. For their performances, the costumes were not historically accurate, and men played women parts in their all male casts. Actors needed to be multitalented (i.e. singing, athletic, dancing, etc.) and often some special roles were reserved for th more popular.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

In any of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female; acting in Renaissance England was an exclusively male profession. Audiences had their favorite performers, looked forward to hearing music with the productions, and relished the luxurious costumes of the leading characters. The stage itself was relatively bare. For the most part, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.

On This Page: Playhouses and the Globe | Theaters and Palaces | Audience Experiences | Actors, Costumes, and Staging | Stage and Screen after Shakespeare

In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford-upon-Avon, James Burbage built the Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered "yard" surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. Spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels; those with the cheapest tickets simply stood for the length of the plays.

Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was one of several to perform at the Theatre, appearing there by about 1594. A few years later, the Burbages lost their lease on the Theatre site and began construction of a new, larger playhouse, the Globe, just south of the Thames. To pay for it, they shared the lease with the five partners (called actor-sharers) in the Lord Chamberlain's company, including Shakespeare.

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's . A new, second Globe was quickly built on the same site, opening in 1614.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

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Shakespeare had his own separate indoor theater for all plays, made in 1609, and continued to give amazing performances, getting him and his company well-paid with high honor. With this, to sit inside on balcony's it cost 2 pennies, 1 to stand in the yard, uncovered (not measured with today's penny worth). Many theaters accommodated fewer people and cost more, starting basic prices at sixpence. Seats on stage sides cost popular men about 24 pence. With this all, the viewers also were served refreshments while viewing inside the theaters.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

In any of these settings, men and boys played all the characters, male and female; acting in Renaissance England was an exclusively male profession. Audiences had their favorite performers, looked forward to hearing music with the productions, and relished the luxurious costumes of the leading characters. The stage itself was relatively bare. For the most part, playwrights used vivid words instead of scenery to picture the scene onstage.

On This Page: Playhouses and the Globe | Theaters and Palaces | Audience Experiences | Actors, Costumes, and Staging | Stage and Screen after Shakespeare

In 1576, when Shakespeare was still a 12-year-old in Stratford-upon-Avon, James Burbage built the Theatre just outside London. The Theatre was among the first playhouses in England since Roman times. Like the many other playhouses that followed, it was a multi-sided structure with a central, uncovered "yard" surrounded by three tiers of covered seating and a bare, raised stage at one end of the yard. Spectators could pay for seating at multiple price levels; those with the cheapest tickets simply stood for the length of the plays.

Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, was one of several to perform at the Theatre, appearing there by about 1594. A few years later, the Burbages lost their lease on the Theatre site and began construction of a new, larger playhouse, the Globe, just south of the Thames. To pay for it, they shared the lease with the five partners (called actor-sharers) in the Lord Chamberlain's company, including Shakespeare.

The Globe, which opened in 1599, became the playhouse where audiences first saw some of Shakespeare's best-known plays. In 1613, it burned to the ground when the roof caught fire during a performance of Shakespeare's . A new, second Globe was quickly built on the same site, opening in 1614.

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In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace-or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn.

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People say that Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616 but nobody knows his actual death date. We also do not know how he died. His memorial was held at the Holy Trinity church in Stratford and it was approved by many people and Martin Droeshouts engraving was near there

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Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century portrait of Shakespeare wooing his wife at the top of this page.

Birth and Childhood | Marriage and Children | London Theater | Final Years

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

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Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564.

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Shakespeare life was revolved around 2 places. London and Stratford. He grew up, had a family and even bought property in Stratford

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Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century family scene at the top of this page.

Primary sources: Shakespeare Documented
Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare's life. This online exhibition of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

On This Page: Birth and Childhood | Marriage and Children | London Theater | Final Years

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

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An overview of Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Library, including his birth and childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon, his marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, his work in the London theaters, and his final years before his death in 1616.

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After a while of being unknown he was first recognized in London, 1592 as an established actor and playwright. After this he published one of his poems and from then on into following years he had many roles as an actor, playwright, and soon enough a business partner in a major acting company. Over time he ended up becoming famous, from a nameless play writer to one of the most recognized, it ll started in London for him.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century family scene at the top of this page.

Primary sources: Shakespeare Documented
Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare's life. This online exhibition of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

On This Page: Birth and Childhood | Marriage and Children | London Theater | Final Years

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

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An overview of Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Library, including his birth and childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon, his marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, his work in the London theaters, and his final years before his death in 1616.

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Shakespeare has written many successful plays like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. He has written over 38 plays and they are considered to be the finest written in English. They are so good that they are still performed and read to this day.

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Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems, many of which are considered to be the finest ever written in English. His works have been translated into every major living language, and some others besides (the Folger's holdings include translations in Esperanto and Klingon), and nearly 400 years after his death, they continue to be performed around the world.

The Folger has copies of every play, from the earliest printings to modern editions, and we offer carefully edited print and digital texts. Follow the links below for more information, including plot synopses, brief textual histories, and selected images from our collection.

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Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems, many of which are considered to be the finest ever written in English. His works have been translated into every major living language, and some others besides (the Folger's holdings include translations in Esperanto and Klingon), and nearly 400 years after his death, they continue to be performed around the world.

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Many of Shakespeare's works of poetry are listed here, and it is said he had over 150 short and long poems. All of this occured and has remained famous for about 400 years, and is available in multiple languages due to its popularity. His poems are considered some of the finest in English, and of all time.

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Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems, many of which are considered to be the finest ever written in English. His works have been translated into every major living language, and some others besides (the Folger's holdings include translations in Esperanto and Klingon), and nearly 400 years after his death, they continue to be performed around the world.

The Folger has copies of every play, from the earliest printings to modern editions, and we offer carefully edited print and digital texts. Follow the links below for more information, including plot synopses, brief textual histories, and selected images from our collection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and over 150 short and long poems, many of which are considered to be the finest ever written in English. His works have been translated into every major living language, and some others besides (the Folger's holdings include translations in Esperanto and Klingon), and nearly 400 years after his death, they continue to be performed around the world.