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The Shakespeare authorship question, the ongoing debate about whether the works attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon were actually written by another writer, or group of writers, has attracted many notable authorship doubters since the subject was first introduced in the 18th century.

Those who question the traditional attribution believe that "William Shakespeare" was a pen name used by the true author (or authors) to keep the writer's identity secret. Of the more than 50 candidates that have been proposed, several claimants have achieved major followings and notable supporters. Major nominees include Edward de Vere, (17th Earl of Oxford), who has attracted the most widespread support since first being proposed in the 1920s, statesman Francis Bacon, dramatist Christopher Marlowe, and William Stanley (6th Earl of Derby), who—along with Oxford and Bacon—is often associated with various "group" theories.

A fundamental principle of those who question Shakespeare’s authorship is that most authors reveal themselves in their work, and that the personality of an author can generally be discerned from his or her writings. With this principle in mind, authorship doubters find parallels in the fictional characters or events in the Shakespearean works and in the life experiences of their preferred candidate. The disjunction between the biography of Shakespeare of Stratford and the content of Shakespeare's works has raised doubts about whether the author and the Stratford businessman are the same person.

Declaration of reasonable doubt

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

• Mark Twain: "All the rest of vast history, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon course, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures — an Eiffel Tower of artificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential facts"
• Mortimer J. Adler (1902 – 2001, Chairman of the Board of Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica.): ""Just a mere glance at pathetic efforts to sign his name (illiterate scrawls) should forever eliminate Shakspere from further consideration in this question — he could not write." "Academics err in failing to acknowledge the mystery surrounding 'Shake-speare's' identity … They would do both liberal education and the works of 'Shake-speare' a distinguished service by opening the question to the judgment of their students, and others outside the academic realm."
• John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933, English novelist and playwright, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize for literature. Best known for The Forsyte Saga and its sequels): Described Oxfordian J.T. Looney's "Shakespeare Identified" as "the best detective story" he had ever read.
• Clifton Fadiman (1904 – 1999, Noted intellectual, author, radio and television personality. Graduate of Columbia University, chief editor at Simon & Shuster): "Count me a convert… This powerful argument should persuade many rationale beings, who, well acquainted with the plays, have no vested interest in preserving a rickety tradition."
• William Yandell Elliott (1896 – 1979, Harvard government professor, counselor to six presidents, Rhodes Scholar and noted poet, he studied at Vanderbilt University, Oxford and the Sorbonne.): advocate of Earl of Oxford.
• Sigmund Freud: "I no longer believe that ... the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him"
• Harry A. Blackmun (Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1970 to 1994): "The Oxfordians have presented a very strong — almost fully convincing — case for their point of view. If I had to rule on the evidence presented, it would be in favor of the Oxfordians".
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Other admirable men had led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man in wide contrast".
• Walt Whitman: "Conceived out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism — only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works".
• Henry James (1843 – 1916, author, literary critic, and major figure in trans-Atlantic literature. He wrote 22 novels, 112 tales, several plays and essays, and often contributed to The Nation, Atlantic Monthly,Harper's and Scribner's.): "I am 'sort of' haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practiced on a patient world."
• Paul H. Nitze (1907 – 2004, High-ranking U.S. government official; co-founder of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Among his positions were Director of Policy Planning for the State Department, Secretary of the Navy, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Member of U.S. delegation to Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international affairs, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control.): "I believe the considerations favoring the hypothesis … are overwhelming"
• Lord Palmerston — Henry John Temple, Third Viscount Palmerston (1784 – 1865, British statesman, twice served as prime minister of the U. K.): ""Viscount Palmerston, the great British statesman, used to say that he rejoiced to have lived to see three things—the re-integration of Italy, the unveiling of the mystery of China and Japan, and the explosion of the Shakespeare illusions." — Diary of the Right Hon. Mount-Stewart E. Grant
• Charlie Chaplin: "In the work of the greatest geniuses, humble beginnings will reveal themselves somewhere but one cannot trace the slightest sign of them in Shakespeare.... Whoever wrote had an aristocratic attitude".
• Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (1907 – 1998, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1972 to 1987.): "I have never thought that the man of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the plays of Shakespeare. I know of no admissible evidence that he ever left England or was educated in the normal sense of the term.
• John Paul Stevens (The senior Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1975–present): "He never had any correspondence with his contemporaries, he never was shown to be present at any major event -- the coronation of James or any of that stuff. I think the evidence that he was not the author is beyond a reasonable doubt."
• Antonin Gregory Scalia (Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1986–present): "My wife, who is a much better expert in literature than I am, has berated me. She thinks we Oxfordians are motivated by the fact that we can't believe that a commoner could have done something like this, you know, it's an aristocratic tendency... It is probably more likely that the pro-Shakespearean people are affected by a democratic bias than the Oxfordians are affected by an aristocratic bias." "

Skeptics through history

19th Century

• William Henry Smith - author of "Was Lord Bacon the Author of Shakespeare's Plays?"
• Delia Bacon - Early proponent of the Group Theory, with Bacon as primary editor
• Harry Stratford Caldecott - 19th century doubter and early Bacon supporter
• Mary Fearon Pott - founder of the Francis Bacon Society (1885)
• W.F.C. Wigston - believed that Francis Bacon was the founding member of the Rosicrucians, a secret society of occult philosophers, and claimed that they secretly created art, literature and drama, including the entire Shakespeare canon, before adding the symbols of the rose and cross to their work.
• George Greenwood - a British lawyer, politician, cricketer, animal welfare reformer and Shakespearean scholar
• Ignatius L. Donnelly - US congressman, author of "The Great Cryptogram"
• Dr. Orville Ward Owen (January 1, 1854 – March 31, 1924) - an American physician, and exponent of the Baconian theory of Shakespearean authorship.
• Elizabeth Wells Gallup (1848, Paris, New York – 1934) was an American educator and exponent of the Baconian theory of Shakespearian authorship.
• James Wilmot -
• John Denham Parsons - An english writer, he frequently clashed with Sir Sidney Lee and authorities at the British Museum over the Shakespeare authorship question.
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) - he gave credence to the Baconian theory in his writings
• Georg Cantor - German mathematician, he published two pamphlets supporting the Bacon theory in 1896 and 1897.
• Walter Conrad Arensberg (1878-1954) - American art collector. He established the Francis Bacon Foundation in California in 1937 and left it his collection of Baconiana.
• Wilbur G. Zeigler - He was the first person to propose that the works of Shakespeare were by Marlowe, presenting a case for it in the preface to his 1895 novel, It was Marlowe: a story of the secret of three centuries

20th Century

• Charles Wisner Barrell – researcher, author, art critic
• Sir George Greenwood – British lawyer, Member of Parliament, Shakespeare scholar
• Archie Webster - In 1923, he wrote "WAS MARLOWE THE MAN?"
• Calvin Hoffman - author of The Murder of the Man who was Shakespeare (1955).
• David Rhys Williams - author of Shakespeare, Thy Name is Marlowe (1966).
• Lewis J.M. Grant - author of Christopher Marlowe, the ghost writer of all the plays, poems and Sonnets of Shakespeare, from 1593 to 1613 (1967).
• William Honey - author of The Shakespeare Epitaph Deciphered (1969) and The Life, Loves and Achievements of Christopher Marlowe, alias Shakespeare (1982).
• Louis Ule, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1609): A Biography (1992).
• A.D Wraight - author of The Story that the Sonnets Tell (1994) and Shakespeare: New Evidence (1996).
• Peter Zenner - author of The Shakespeare Invention (1999).
• Alex Jack - Hamlet, by Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare - 2 vols. (2005) (related website)

• Orson Welles – actor, director, writer, producer
• Marjorie Bowen – British historian, biographer, novelist

• Sigmund Freud – pioneer of psychoanalysis
• Sir John Gielgud – Shakespearean actor, president of the International Shakespeare Association 1974–2000
• Charlton Ogburn – historian, investigative journalist, researcher, author

21st Century

• Mark Anderson – journalist, researcher, author, astrophysicist
• Michael Rubbo - Australian documentary film maker who, in 2001, made the TV film Much Ado About Something in which the Marlovian theory was explored.
• Rodney Bolt - author of History Play (novel) (2005)
• Virginia M. Fellows, Author of the Baconian work, The Shakespeare Code (2006)
• Samuel Blumenfeld - author of The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection: A New Study of the Authorship Question (2008)
• Daryl Pinksen - author of Marlowe's Ghost: The Blacklisting of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (2008)
• Peter Farey - Farey's Marlowe Page
• Harry Blackmun – U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Gelett Burgess – author, critic, poet, artist
• Michael Egan – academic, university English professor, Shakespearean scholar and author
• Roland Emmerich – film director, screenwriter, producer; producer and director of Anonymous (2011)
• William Farina – biographer, nonfiction researcher and author, essayist
• Warren Hope – academic, university English professor, Shakespeare scholar, author
• Leslie Howard – actor, director, producer
• Christmas Humphreys – British barrister, judge, author, Shakespeare scholar
• Rhys Ifans – actor
• Jeremy Irons – actor
• Sir Derek Jacobi – Shakespearean actor, director
• J. Thomas Looney – British pedagogue, researcher, Shakespeare scholar, author
• David McCullough – historian, author, biographer
• Paul Nitze – longterm high-ranking U.S. government official and Presidential advisor, ambassador
• John Orloff – screenwriter
• Keanu Reeves – actor
• Mark Rylance – Shakespearean actor and director, director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre 1995–2005
• Antonin Scalia – U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Joseph Sobran – journalist, author, researcher, Shakespeare scholar
• John Paul Stevens – U.S. Supreme Court Justice
• Michael York – actor

See also

• List of Oxfordian theory supporters

References

1. McMichael, George (1962). Shakespeare and His Rivals, A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy. pg 56: New York: Odyssey Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
2. Charleton Ogburn,The Mysterious William Shakespeare: the Myth and the Reality, New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1984
3. James, Oscar, and Ed Campbell.The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare. (1966): p. 115.
4. Gibson, H.N. (2005). The Shakespeare Claimants: A Critical Survey of the Four Principal Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays. Routledge. pp. 48, 72, 124. ISBN 0415352908. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Kathman, David (2003). "The Question of Authorship". InShakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Wells, Stanley (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 620, 625–626. ISBN 0199245223.
   • Love, Harold (2002). Attributing Authorship: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 194–209. ISBN 0521789486.
   • Schoenbaum, Lives, 430–40.
   • Holderness, Graham (1988). The Shakespeare Myth. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 137, 173. ISBN 0719026350. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
5. Schoenbaum, Sam, Shakespeare’s Lives, 2nd ed(Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991), 405, 411, 437; Looney, J. Thomas, "Shakespeare" Identified (NY: Frederick A. Stokes, 1920), 79-84.
6. Derek Jacobi,"Introduction" in Mark Anderson, Shakespeare by Another Name Gotham Books, 2005, page xxiv
7. Twain, "Is Shakespeare Dead?"
8. Looney, Shakespeare Identified
9. http://www.doubtaboutwill.org/declaration
10. Van Gelder, Lawrence (10 September 2007). "Arts Briefly". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
11. http://doubtaboutwill.org/past_doubters
12. Mark Twain Quotes
13. Quoted in Shakespeare's Lives, Schoenbaum (1970) 602, in a chapter on authorship doubters.
14. The Mysterious William Shakespeare (Second Edition, 1992), Charlton Ogburn, front jacket.
15. Ogburn (1992 edition), p. vi.
16. Emerson's Representative Men (1850). In Works, 4:218
17. Whitman, Walt. "What lurks behind Shakespeare's historical plays?" In his November Boughs. London: Alexander Gardner, 1889. p. 52.
18. Quoted in Shakespeare's Lives, Schoenbaum (1970) 553, in a chapter on authorship doubters.
19. Letter to Charlton Ogburn, following a moot court trial of the authorship of Shakespeare's works at American University in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Powell's letter is quoted in the prefatory matter to Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare (Second Edition, 1992, vi).
20. ^ Bravin, Jess. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123998633934729551.html.
21. The Writings of Charles Wisner Barrell. Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook.
22. of the Shakespeare Fellowship
23. http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/webster.htm
24. "I think Oxford wrote Shakespeare. If you don’t agree, there are some awfully funny coincidences to explain away." – Orson Welles, quoted in Beaton, Cecil and Kenneth Tynan, Persona Grata. Putnam, 1954. p. 61.
25. Bowen, Marjorie. Introduction to Percy Allen’s The Plays of Shakespeare and Chapman in Relation to French History. London: Archer, 1933.
26. "I no longer believe that ... the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him. Since reading Shakespeare Identified by J. Thomas Looney , I am almost convinced that the assumed name conceals the personality of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.... The man of Stratford seems to have nothing at all to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost everything." – Sigmund Freud in 1937.
27. Gielgud revealed himself "extremely sympathetic to the Oxfordian cause" (Daily Mail), and in 1996 signed a petition sponsored by the Shakespeare Oxford Society asking to have the claims for Edward de Vere given a full and fair hearing by the Shakespeare establishment.
28. Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth & the Reality. EPM Publications, 1984.
29. Anderson, Mark.'Shakespeare' by Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the Man Who Was Shakespeare. Gotham, 2005 (revised paperback 2006).
30. ^ Bravin, Jess. "Justice Stevens Renders an Opinion on Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays: It Wasn't the Bard of Avon, He Says; 'Evidence Is Beyond a Reasonable Doubt." Wall Street Journal. April 18, 2009.
31. Hope, Warren and Kim Holston.The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Authorship Theories. McFarland, 2009. p. 103.
32. "Noted Shakespearean Egan Takes over The Oxfordian." PlayShakespeare.com. 29 October 2008.
33. "Roland Emmerich on his Shakespeare Film". Screen Crave. October 9, 2009. Retrieved May 17, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
34. Farina, William. De Vere As Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon. McFarland, 2005.
35. Hope, Warren and Kim Holston.The Shakespeare Controversy: An Analysis of the Authorship Theories. McFarland, 2009.
36. In 1941, Howard produced, directed, and starred in 'Pimpernel' Smith, in which he personally espouses Oxford's authorship of Shakespeare: film clip.
37. Humphreys, Christmas."Introduction to the Shakespeare Authorship Question."WhoWroteShakespeare.com.
38. Stevens, Dana (May 4, 2010). "The Shakespeare Apocalypse". Slate. Retrieved May 18, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
39. Irons announced his Oxfordian convictions on the Charlie Rose showepisode which aired December 27, 2004.
40. Jacobi, Derek. Address to the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre
41. Thorpe, Vanessa. "Who Was Shakespeare? That Is (Still) the Question: Campaign Revives Controversy of Bard's Identity." The Observer. 9 September 2007.
42. Looney, J. Thomas.Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. London: Cecil Palmer, 1920.
43. "The strange, difficult, contradictory man who emerges as the real Shakespeare, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, is not just plausible but fascinating and wholly believable." McCullough's foreword to Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare.
44. Nitze wrote the foreword to Richard F. Whalen's Shakespeare — Who Was He?: The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. (Praeger, 2008).
45. Nitze argued the Oxfordian case for the 1992 Frontline three-hour video dialogue, Uncovering Shakespeare: An Update, chaired by William F. Buckley.
46. Orloff, John (April 19, 2010). "The Shakespeare Authorship Question Isn't Settled". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 18, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
47. Satchell, Michael. "Hunting for Good Will: Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up?" U.S. News & World Report. July 24, 2000.
48. ^ Niederkorn, William S. "A Historic Whodunit: If Shakespeare Didn't, Who Did?" New York Times. February 10, 2002.
49. Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare. Free Press, 1997.

• Shakespearean authorship
• Shakespearean scholarship