Shakespeare Biography

SHAKSPERE / SHAKESPEARE BIOGRAPHY
AND AUTHORSHIP CONTROVERSY


For a solid and well-constructed introduction to the Shakespeare Authorship Controversy, see the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship and its Shakespeare Authorship 101.
For a wider scope than Oxfordianism on the Shakespeare Authorship Question, see the more inclusive Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable.


AUTHORSHIP WORKS

Amphlett, H. Who Was Shakespeare?: A New Enquiry. London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1955. De Vere is the answer.

Baron, Dennis. De Vere is Shakespeare. Cambridge: The Oleander Press, 1997.

Bethell, Tom, Gail Kern Paster, et al. “The Ghost of Shakespeare.” Harper’s Magazine April 1999: 35-62. Five Oxfordians and five Stratfordians make their cases.

Clark, Eva Turner. Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays. 1931. 3rd ed. by Ruth Loyd Miller. Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1974.

Frontline: The Shakespeare Mystery. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/

Hernandez, Romel. “Scholar stands by theory of Shakespeare as a fraud.” The Seattle Times 4 April 1999: B4. Daniel Wright from Concordia University in Portland makes his Oxfordian claims.

Hunt, Douglas. “Arguing When Facts Are Disputed.” The Riverside Guide to Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991. 168-194. A quick summary of the authorship issue.

Michell, John. Who Wrote Shakespeare? London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1999. Takes pains to be absolutely fair, thorough, and objective about the authorship controversy, and still has trouble with the Stratfordian viewpoint.

Ogburn, Charlton. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality. 2nd ed. McLean, VA: EPM Pub., 1992. Probably the most influential Oxfordian book currently.

Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn. This Star of England. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Pub., 1952. Nearly 1300 pages.

Price, Diana. Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. The most thorough case to date against the Stratford man as Shake-speare.

The Shakespeare Authorship Sourcebook. http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/index.htm. Contains (or will) J. Thomas Looney, “Shakespeare” Identified; Dorothy and Charleton Ogburn, This Star of England; and other resources.

The Shakespeare Conspiracy. Narr. Sir Derek Jacobi. TMW Media Group, Inc., 2000. 50 min. The star of I, C-C-C-Claudius and of the Shakespearean episode of Frasier is the Oxfordian presenter of the case.

Sobran, Joseph. Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time. NY: The Free Press, 1997.

Whalen, Richard F. Shakespeare: Who Was He? The Oxford Challenge to the Bard of Avon. Westport, CT: Praeger Pub., 1994. Over six hundred pages fewer than Ogburn.

Wright, Daniel. “Who Was Edward de Vere?” The Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre. http://www.cu-portland.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/CAS-SARC-devere.pdf

—. “William Shake-speare: ‘O, how that name befits my composition.'” The Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre. http://www.cu-portland.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/CAS-SARC-discovering%20shakespeare.pdf

[N.B.: For further research, Ogburn and Whalen have extensive bibliographies for all sides of the biographical issue.]