1. Proving Shakespeare
Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells & Ros Barber

4. ‘‘William Shakespeare,William Shakespeare,
his method of work’,his method of work’,
1904 by Max
Beerbohm

7. Shakespeare and Authorship
M.A. in Shakespeare Authorship Studies
at Brunel University
Concordia University

8. No intellectual justification?
Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre,
Concordia University,
Portland Oregon

9. Part One: Sceptics
- ‘The Unreadable Delia Bacon’ by Graham Holderness
- ‘The Case for Bacon’ by Alan Stewart
- ‘The Case for Marlowe’ by Charles Nicholl
- ‘The life and theatrical interests of Edward de Vere, 17th
Earl of Oxford’
- ‘The Unusual Suspects’ by Matt Kubus

10. ‘The Unreadable Delia Bacon’
Collaborative authorship, a ‘school’, led
by Sir Walter Ralegh.
Style difficult to read; hypothesis never
actually proven (and unprovable); more
like Gothic fiction...
Book The Philosophy of Shakespeare’s
Plays, 1857.

11. Delia Bacon
‘The brave, bold genius of Raleigh flashed new life into that little nucleus of
the Elizabethan development. The new 'Round Table,' which that newly-
beginning age of chivalry, with its new weapons and devices, and its new
and more heroic adventure had created, was not yet 'full' till he came in.
The Round Table grew rounder with this knight's presence. Over those
dainty stores of the classic ages, over those quaint memorials of the elder
chivalry, that were spread out on it, over the dead letter of the past, the
brave Atlantic breeze came in, the breath of the great future blew, when the
turn came for this knight's adventure; whether opened in the prose of its
statistics, or set to its native music in the mystic melodies of the bard who
was there to sing it.’ p. 42

12. Whodunnit?

13. Who else?
Roger Manners, 5th
Earl
of Rutland
Queen Elizabeth I Ben Jonson
Edward De Vere, 17th
Earl of Oxford
Sir Walter Raleigh Lady Mary Sidney
William Stanley, 6th
Earl of Derby
Sir Henry Neville
Daniel Defoe

14. ‘Mathematically, each time an additional candidate
is suggested, the probability decreases that any given
name is the true author.’
Matt Kubus, ‘The Unusual Suspects’.

16. Part Two: Shakespeare as Author
‘Theorizing Shakespeare’s Authorship’ by Andrew Hadfield
‘Allusions to Shakespeare to 1642’ by Stanley Wells
‘Shakespeare as collaborator’ by John Jowett
‘Authorship and the evidence of stylometrics’ by Macdonald P. Jackson
‘What does textual evidence reveal about the author?’ by James Mardock and
Eric Rasmussen
‘Shakespeare and Warwickshire’ by David Kathman
‘Shakespeare and School’ by Carol Chillington Rutter
‘Shakespeare Tells Lies’ by Barbara Everett

18. Evidence for Shakespeare:
publications, theatrical knowledge,
references, memorial and
posthumous evidence...

19. Publication Evidence
Venus and Adonis (dedication 1593
and the 15 reprints up to 1636)
Lucrece (dedication 1594 and the 7
reprints up to 1632)
Henry VI Part 2 (Q3 1619)
Richard II (Q2 1598, Q3 1598, Q4
1608, Q5 1615)
Richard III (Q2 1598, Q3 1602, Q4
1605, Q5 1612, Q6 1622)
Love’s Labour’s Lost (Q1 1598)
Henry IV Part 1 (Q2 1599, Q3 1604,
Q4 1608, Q5 1613)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Q1
1600, Q2 1619)
The Merchant of Venice (Q1 1600, Q2
1619)
Henry IV Part 2 (Q1 1600 )
Much Ado About Nothing (Q1 1600)
The Merry Wives of Windsor (Q1
1602, Q2 1619)
Hamlet (Q1 1603, Q2 1604)
King Lear (Q1 1608, Q2 1619)
Shakespeares Sonnets (Q1 1609)
Pericles (Q1 1609, Q2 1609, Q3 1611,
Q4 1619)
Troilus and Cressida (Q1 1609)

20. ‘Shakespeare and School’
‘The ‘ Kyng’s newe Scole’ was not exceptional. It was part of the Tudors’
post-Reformation expansion and reformation of the education system: a
project so comprehensive that by 1660 only in two counties of England
would a boy have lived further than twelve miles from a free grammar
school. Ben Jonson was a grammar school boy. So, I believe, was William
Shakespeare. And if the educational system that produced England’s
greatest theologians, ambassadors, lawyers, physicians, moral
philosophers and political thinkers also produced its best playwrights,
Erasmus, for one, wouldn’t have been surprised.’
Carol Chillington Rutter, ‘Shakespeare and School’

21. Part Three: A Cultural Phenomenon ... Did
Shakespeare Write Shakespeare?
‘“This palpable device”: Authorship and Conspiracy in Shakespeare’s Life’ by
Kathleen E. McLuskie
‘Amateurs and Professionals: Regendering Bacon’ by Andrew Murphy
‘Fictional treatments of Shakespeare’s Authorship’ by Paul Franssen
‘The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt’ by Stuart Hampton Reeves
‘“There won’t be puppets will there?”: “Heroic” authorship and the cultural politics
of Anonymous’ by Douglas M. Lanier
‘“The Shakespeare Establishment” and the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion’
by Paul Edmondson

22. Anti-Shakespearian responses…
‘A Declaration of Reasonable Doubt’,

23. ‘The “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”’
‘What, then, has the Declaration achieved in its (to date) five years of existence?
What is it capable of achieving? […] The Declaration that [William] Leahy publicly
signed in 2007 has, next to his name, spaces reserved for the Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust and the Shakespeare Institute, both of which are missing
signatures (I could not find anyone at either institution that remembers being
approached). [This] seems to be a gauntlet thrown down at the ‘orthodox’
Shakespearians, whom the Declaration seems to simultaneously deride for their
small-mindedness and yet crave acceptance from.‘
Stuart Hampton-Reeves, ‘The “Declaration of Reasonable Doubt”

27. ‘Afterword’ by James Shapiro
‘The dismal box-office showing of Anonymous has undoubtedly been
a setback for them; and Emmerich’s own admission that the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust shares the blame for his film’s rapid
demise is an indication that an organized response contributed to
that end, and was a much better strategy than the one for too long
adopted by Shakespeareans, which was to ignore the problem and
hope that it would go away. The facts and analysis presented in
this volume will make responding to the next film, or the next
campaign, or the next question posed about Shakespeare’s
authorship by a student or a stranger or even a teacher that much
easier.’

28. Questions
• www.shakespearebitesback.com
• www.60minuteswithShakespeare.com
• Our Next Webinar:
• ‘Reviewing Shakespeare’, Monday 6 May 4pm
register at: www.bloggingshakespeare.com

31. Proving Shakespeare
Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells & Ros Barber