The actors John Heminges and Henry Condell collected William Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio of 1623. They’d known Shakespeare person
Recent developments include a public “mock trial” of Shakespeare at, of all places, Middle Temple. Though the judges came down on Shakespeare’s side, the very notion that his authorship is a matter of debate serves the denialists’ cause. When I queried this with the Middle Temple press office, the event’s organiser angrily revealed himself as a believer that the real Shakespeare was the Earl of Oxford (such people call themselves Oxfordians).
Simon & Schuster has issued a book, Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler, an American journalist. Its genesis is an article Winkler wrote for The Atlantic in 2019 on reasons for doubting the attribution of authorship to Shakespeare from Stratford. Her misconceptions were patiently dismantled by the Columbia scholar James Shapiro in the next issue. Winkler’s book is a farrago of wounded pride, sly insinuation of mystery where there is none, and a feeble grasp of sources, dates and facts...
...This is no time for genteel dialogue. The riot at the US Capitol underlines that baseless conspiracy theories have costs. If, through cynicism or soft-headedness, periodicals and publishers act as accessories, they shame themselves.
