Paul Edmondson - Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy

Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? The authorship question has been much treated in works of fiction, film and television, provoking interest all over the world. Sceptics have proposed many candidates as the author of Shakespeare's works, including Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford. But why and how did the authorship question arise and what does surviving evidence offer in answer to it? This authoritative, accessible and frequently entertaining book sets the debate in its historical context and provides an account of its main protagonists and their theories. Presenting the authorship of Shakespeare's works in relation to historiography, psychology and literary theory, twenty-two distinguished scholars reposition and develop the discussion. The book explores the issues in the light of biographical, textual and bibliographical evidence to bring fresh perspectives to an intriguing cultural phenomenon.

Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. His publications include: Twelfth Night: A Guide to the Text and Its Theatrical Life and (co-authored with Stanley Wells) Shakespeare's Sonnets , Coffee with Shakespeare and Shakespeare Bites Back (an e-book about the Shakespeare Authorship Discussion, published in October 2011). His other publications include work on Shakespeare and the Bronts, the poetry of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe and the musicality of Shakespeare's words. He is curator of 60minuteswithShakespeare.com , The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's response to the authorship debate. He is also a priest in The Church of England.

Stanley Wells, cbe, is Honorary President and Former Chairman of the Trustees of Shakespeare's Birthplace, Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies of the University of Birmingham and Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, of which he was for many years Vice-Chairman. He was for nearly twenty years the editor of the annual Shakespeare Survey , and writes for the New York Review of Books and many other publications. He has edited The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies and is General Editor (with Gary Taylor) of The Complete Oxford Shakespeare . His most recent books are Shakespeare For All Time ; Looking for Sex in Shakespeare ; Shakespeare & Co .; and Is It True What they Say About Shakespeare? His Shakespeare, Sex, and Love was published in 2010.

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In August 1856, a 45-year-old American lady by the name of Delia Bacon paid a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, where she lodged initially at 15 College Street, not far from Holy Trinity Church. She met with the vicar, George Granville, who allowed her access outside normal visiting hours to Shakespeare's grave, which she wished to investigate in the hope that it concealed solutions to an imagined code which would demonstrate that there were reasons to question received ideas about the authorship of Shakespeare's works. If I only had the proper tools, she complained to herself, I could lift the stone myself, weak as I am, with no one to help A strange weariness overcame her. She left, her mission unaccomplished.