The Shakespeare Claimants is a critical survey of the great controversy that has raged over the authorship of the Shakespearean plays.

This edition first published in 1962. The Shakespeare Claimants is a critical survey of the great controversy that has raged over the authorship of the Shakespearean plays. It provides the general reader with an outline history of this controversy and with a full description and analysis of the main anti-Stratfordian arguments. This book concentrates on the four main claimants: Bacon, Oxford, Derby and Marlowe. The book contains an extensive bibliography and footnotes to guide the reader through the text.

In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. For more than two hundred years after William Shakespeare’s death, no one doubted that he had written his plays. Since then, however, dozens of candidates have been proposed for the authorship of what is generally agreed to be the finest body of work by a writer in the English language. In this remarkable book, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays. Among the doubters have been such writers and thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, and Helen Keller. It is a fascinating story, replete with forgeries, deception, false claimants, ciphers and codes, conspiracy theories—and a stunning failure to grasp the power of the imagination. As Contested Will makes clear, much more than proper attribution of Shakespeare’s plays is at stake in this authorship controversy. Underlying the arguments over whether Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays are fundamental questions about literary genius, specifically about the relationship of life and art. Are the plays (and poems) of Shakespeare a sort of hidden autobiography? Do Hamlet, Macbeth, and the other great plays somehow reveal who wrote them? Shapiro is the first Shakespeare scholar to examine the authorship controversy and its history in this way, explaining what it means, why it matters, and how it has persisted despite abundant evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays attributed to him. This is a brilliant historical investigation that will delight anyone interested in Shakespeare and the literary imagination.

Excerpt from The Shakespeare Claimants: A Critical Survey of the Four Principal Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays The Great Shakespeare Controversy, like History and Science, is a subject that goes on expanding. New generations of theorists are constantly putting forward new claimants for the authorship of the immortal plays, and orthodox scholars are constantly dis covering new details about the life and background Of the Strat ford actor, which they beat into weapons to repel the new Invaders or use to make fresh raids into the domains of the older schools of thought. There will therefore always be room for a new book that surveys the controversy historically, especially if it can introduce a little novelty into its presentation of the facts. It has been my business for many years to lecture on Shake speare to senior forms in schools and to adults in w.e.a. Classes, and naturally from time to time I have been asked questions about the rival claimants to the authorship, followed by the inevitable one what book would I recommend the questioners to read in order to get a general idea of the subject. This has never been easy to answer. The way in which the orthodox case has been presented is exceedingly diffuse. Sometimes it has con sisted of a chapter or two in a biography of Shakespeare, some times it has been a special study of one type of argument, such as the Friedmans' work on the cryptograms, and sometimes a counter-attack on one particular school of thought, while of course there are numerous papers dealing with individual argu ments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.