Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? This authoritative collection of essays brings fresh perspectives to bear on an intriguing cultural phenomenon.

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

Theories stating that plays attributed to Shakespeare were in fact written by other authors have existed for more than 200 years; some theories have been ridiculed and reviled while some have gained growing popular and scholarly support. The history of the Shakespeare controversy is presented in this revised edition of the 1992 work, with much new information and three additional chapters. Part I documents and critically assesses the most important theories on the authorship question. Part II is an annotated bibliography, arranged chronologically, of the many works that deal with the controversy from its vague beginnings to the present.

Who really wrote the plays of Shakespeare?

A Critique of Anti-racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment critiques current antiracist ideology in rhetoric and composition, arguing that it inadvertently promotes a deficit-model of empowerment for both students and scholars. Erec Smith claims that empowerment theory—which promotes individual, communal, and strategic efficacy—is missing from most antiracist initiatives, which instead often abide by what Smith refers to as a "primacy of identity”: an over-reliance on identity, particularly a victimized identity, to establish ethos. Scholars of rhetoric, composition, communication, and critical race theory will find this book particularly useful.

Sabrina Feldman manages the Planetary Science Instrument Development Office at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Born and raised in Riverside, California, she attended college and graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, where she enjoyed the wonderful performances of the Berkeley Shakespeare Company, studied Shakespeare's works for a semester with Professor Stephen Booth, and received a Ph.D. in experimental physics in 1996. She has worked on many different instrument development projects for NASA, and is the former deputy director of JPL's Center for Life Detection. Her scientific training, combined with a lifelong love of literature and all things Shakespearean, gives her a unique perspective on the Shakespeare authorship mystery. Dr. Feldman lives in Pasadena, California with her husband and two children. This is her first book. If William Shakespeare wrote the Bard's works... Who wrote the Shakespeare Apocrypha? During his lifetime and for many years afterwards, William Shakespeare was credited with writing not only the Bard's canonical works, but also a series of 'apocryphal' Shakespeare plays. Stylistic threads linking these lesser works suggest they shared a common author or co-author who wrote in a coarse, breezy style, and created very funny clown scenes. He was also prone to pilfering lines from other dramatists, consistent with Robert Greene's 1592 attack on William Shakespeare as an "upstart crow." The anomalous existence of two bodies of work exhibiting distinct poetic voices printed under one man's name suggests a fascinating possibility. Could William Shakespeare have written the apocryphal plays while serving as a front man for the 'poet in purple robes, ' a hidden court poet who was much admired by a literary coterie in the 1590s? And could the 'poet in purple robes' have been the great poet and statesman Thomas Sackville (1536-1608), a previously overlooked authorship candidate who is an excellent fit to the Shakespearean glass slipper? Both of these scenarios are well supported by literary and historical records, many of which have not been previously considered in the context of the Shakespeare authorship debate.