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Shakespeare authorshipAtlas
Celebrities & Entertainment · Hidden identities & authorship
Competing accounts of whether William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works attributed to him, or whether another educated candidate authored them under that name.
Open the caseDocumented9
- Documented · An authorship skepticism tradition proposes alternative candidates such as Oxford, Bacon, and others.
- Documented · Baconian authorship theory was the leading alternative-candidate position in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Documented · Institutional Shakespeare collections and research libraries remain central venues where early printed texts and authorship-related materials are held, exhibited, and debated.
- Documented · Mainstream academic Shakespeare studies continue to attribute the canon primarily to the Stratford actor-shareholder.
- Documented · Nathaniel Holmes wrote The Authorship of Shakespeare as a contribution to the alternative-authorship literature.
- Documented · Sir Francis Bacon was the first alternative candidate proposed as the true author of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare.
- Documented · The Folger Shakespeare Library and British Library hold major early Shakespeare collections.
- Documented · The Shakespeare authorship question is a longstanding debate over whether William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the works published under that name.
- Documented · Works published under the name William Shakespeare appear in quarto and folio form in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Official1
- Official · The Folger Shakespeare Library publishes an appendix addressing authorship issues connected with Henry VIII, including discussion of collaborative composition.
Contested2
- Contested · Authorship skepticism presents multiple educated alternative candidates rather than a single agreed substitute author.
- Contested · The Baconian theory holds that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare and that the historical Shakespeare was used as a front to shield the true author.